Orange Shirt Day is being honoured by a group of children from the Thamesville area in the form of hundreds of orange ribbons.
The Grade 5 and 6 students from Thamesville Public School marked the day by tying 200 ribbons around trees in the area.
Created in 2013 and held annually on September 30, Orange Shirt Day is meant to promote awareness in Canada about the Indian residential school system experience and the impact it had on the Indigenous communities, recognized as cultural genocide.
Grade 5/6 Teacher Melinda Poissant said that the students have been studying residential schools and reading stories on them. Knowing that September 30 was coming up with this year's theme being "every child matters", the students worked together and brainstormed ideas on how to commemorate the day.
"They kind of wanted to do something different," she said. "So what they thought they'd like to do is, they had seen that people put ribbons around people who had passed away. So they thought why don't we do the orange ribbons for the students that passed away or who did not return from the residential schools."
Poissant shared the initiative on Facebook and asked that any resident who wanted to have an orange ribbon placed on a tree by their home to provide their address.
According to Poissant, the class prepared during school hours and tied the ribbons on Monday and Tuesday.
"We went around for two days at night and put orange ribbons near these homes and we did the whole main street of Thamesville," she exclaimed. "The kids were pretty impressed, I had one of them with me and he said 'this is so cool.' It meant a lot for him and it felt like he was making a difference."
Poissant said that she was very proud of the students for coming up with something that was unique and meant a lot to them. She said the residents of Thamesville were also a huge support.
"Thamesville is fantastic," she said. "They were so kind to the kids. They provided their addresses, a lot of residents met the kids when they saw them putting the orange ribbons, they waved and said 'thank you.'"
Now that they have completed the initiative for the first time, Poissant said she hopes to do it every year and grow it to even more trees.
