Orange Shirt Day

I generally try to avoid buying stuff for specific occasions and try to use what we have on hand or don't participate as I just don't want more random things cluttering our house. However there are some that I think are very important and I need to make the effort to join in.

September 30th was Orange Shirt Day, which started a few years back to remember the indigenous children who were ripped from their families and sent to residential, experiencing loss of culture and abuse.

Quoting from the above news story:

Orange Shirt Day is an annual display of support and remembrance for the people who were taken from their families and sent to residential schools.

"It's an opportunity to honour the survivors, and those that did not survive, the residential schools," said Leslie Ronaldson, executive director of the Society for Safe and Caring Schools & Communities. "It's important for everyone to know what happened back then, and it actually wasn't that long ago."

Thousands of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were removed from their homes at this time of year and forced to attend residential schools. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.

Orange Shirt Day was inspired by a story shared by a former student – her new orange shirt was taken away on her first day of school. 

Wearing an orange shirt as part of this program is meant to recognize the harm of residential schools, to serve as an act of reconciliation and to help fight racism and bullying.

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I did leave buying the shirts to the last minute and when I stopped at my local Michael's to take advantage of the 2 shirts for $10 sale there were only adult larges left. Way too big for my daughter but only a little big for me.

She likes dresses better anyways so I took the Jalie Nicole pattern I'd recently made for her and cut down the t-shirt to a dress for her. Makes a really quick sew as I conserved all the hems from the original shirt. Got a love a project where you can skip hemming!

I also made a shirt for myself to wear to work, but ended up working from home on Orange Shirt Day as my daughter broke her leg on the weekend. At least I got to wear it during school drop off and pick up. The dress was also more practical with this new accessory.