What is Orange Shirt Day?

Orange shirts (often combined with the slogan Every Child Matters) are worn every year on September 30 in order to recognize the damage residential schools inflicted on the Indigenous people of North America. Residential schools were set up all around the United States and Canada from 1831 to 1997 to “Kill the Indian, and save the man.” There is no record of how many children were taken from their homes to live in these boarding schools, but by 1925, there were over 60,000 children in these schools in the US alone.

In most schools the death rate of the students was near 25% while some reached close to 70%— yes, 70% of all students in the school would die from abuse, neglect, malnutrition, and poverty related illnesses. Thousands of these children were buried in unmarked graves on school property. Their families were never informed of their deaths.

In 2013, an event was held in British Columbia to commemorate the stolen children, and survivors told their stories. One survivor had been sent to school with an orange shirt her grandmother had made for her, and it was taken from her. The shirt became a symbol of loss to the people attending, and has since grown to represent the movement.

This beaded pin graph is offered at no charge in the hopes it will help raise awareness of the horrors of the residential schools. People who would like to make it as part of a fundraiser are welcome to. Please do not sell it for personal profit.

These are the pin backs I am using. They *just* fit on the beading.

This is an affiliate link to them: https://amzn.to/4nS2uyP