Normally spirit day is a fun and exciting time where you dress up goofy and have crazy hair, but here at MPHS our first spirit day has a deeper meaning. A meaning that hits a little close to home for some people in our community.
What is Orange Shirt Day and the society surrounding it? Orange Shirt Day is to represent the Indigenous people that were in boarding schools and help bring awareness to the ones still going today. Phyllis Webstad, founder and ambassador of ‘Orange Shirt Society’ is a big part of bringing awareness. She tells her story all over the country of her days in residential schools.
Phyllis Webstad has published many books, ‘Orange Shirt Day’ is one of them. It tells all the knowledge, facts, statistics, backstory, about Phyllis, and much more information. It tells how to share Phyllis’s story and how to educate yourself on the hurt of this topic. This book is very great to get all your information for Orange Shirt Day and a great way to share the topic with those in your life. Not only is it important to educate yourself but also those around you.
Another great book by her is ‘The Orange Shirt Story’ (ages 7+) and ‘Phyllis’s Orange Shirt’ (ages 6+) are both in a child-book form,but can be read by anyone. They talk about a child’s life in a residential school and show the raw emotion of a child in the middle of the trauma. ‘Phyllis’s Orange Shirt’ actually talks about her time in residential schools and her life during that time. We wear orange shirts in honor of those who passed as well to honor those who survived.