Today, Sept. 30, schoolchildren and teachers all across the country will be donning orange shirts, remembering the atrocities committed against Indigenous Canadians in residential schools.

More than 40 years ago, 6-year-old Phyllis Webstad attended a residential school in B.C. On her first day, she was wearing her favourite orange shirt which her grandmother had saved up to buy for her. When she arrived, she was stripped and the shirt was taken away from her and never given back. The experience taught her that she did not matter. Now as a survivor of the schools, Webstad started the Orange Shirt Day movement.

"It is a day to honour and remember that experience she went through," says Vivian Gauvin, a student support teacher at Sacred Heart Elementary. "It's definitely a difficult truth in our Canadian history. And we have a part to play. As educators, we need to make sure that we are speaking the truth in our schools."

Gauvin is organizing this year's Orange Shirt Day at Sacred Heart. She says students are always very receptive to Webstad's story.

"Students are curious and they want to learn. And when we deliver the truth, they are shocked and can't believe that that happened. And we can't either, because a lot of us educators delivering the curriculum, weren't taught it ourselves."

She hopes that more awareness can be brought to this part of Canadian history and that we reaffirm our commitment that 'Every Child Matters.'