OUR WORK
National Day of Remembrance of Indigenous Boarding Schools
(Orange Shirt Day) is September 30
National Day of Remembrance of Indigenous Boarding Schools, or Orange Shirt Day, began as a day to bring attention to the damage the residential school system did to Indigenous children, lifeways, and cultures.
Beginning in the late 1800s, the US government and various church groups began establishing boarding (or residential) schools for American Indian and Alaska Native children. The children were forcibly removed from their families and cultures. These schools were intended to "civilize" Native children and assimilate them into white culture. This amounted to cultural genocide. The first boarding school in Alaska was established in 1878 by Presbyterian missionaries, and in the decades that followed boarding schools opened across Alaska. The Alaska Native Heritage Center has located over 100 residential schools in Alaska, a number that continues to grow. Alaska Native children were also taken from their homeland to schools across the US.
The first step to healing and reconciliation is truth. Each year, this day continues to draw in more publicity and recognition. Let’s keep that momentum going. Join ACT’s newsletter here for the most up-to-date information.
About Residential Schools
Learn the story
Learn the story behind why National Day of Remembrance of US Indian Boarding Schools is known as Orange Shirt Day from Phyllis Webstad, residential school survivor and creator of the day of recognition and awareness.
How Does this Relate to ACT’s Work?
The impacts of residential schools- some of which closed as recently as the 1990s- have cascaded into our work in child abuse and neglect. These schools, which existed in Canada and across the continental United States and Alaska, forcibly separated Indigenous children from their parents, banned the use of Indigenous languages, and alienated children from their culture. Survivors and family members have shared stories of child abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect Native children experienced while in residential schools. Many of those children, the ones who were lucky enough to find their way home to their families and communities, came back with more than visible scars. Within Alaska many Indigenous people were forcibly taken away and either sent to residential schools in state, or sent thousands of miles away to boarding schools on the East Coast. Members of a later generation were also impacted because their grandparents, parents, aunties and uncles who survived were never given the support required to heal. The traumatic legacy of the residential school system lives on today.
One of the ways to help ensure that all children thrive is to learn from the past. We stand with Native people and believe that every child matters. Stand with us by taking a pledge to educate yourself and your child on residential schools. No child is too young to start learning about this, as no child was too young to be forced to attend a residential school. Using this booklet of resources, take time to learn about, listen to, heal from and elevate National Day of Remembrance of US Indian Boarding Schools (Orange Shirt Day).
Because by learning from the past and working to heal ourselves and our communities, together we can prevent child abuse and neglect.
2024 Educational Toolkit
In order to make teaching, learning, and elevating National Day of Remembrance of US Indian Boarding Schools (Orange Shirt Day) easier for all Alaskans, Alaska Children’s Trust pulled resources together to create an educator toolkit. The toolkit can be used by anyone - parents, teachers, afterschool providers, and every Alaskan!
The best way to view the toolkit is via this downloadable PDF so that you can click on the links included. You are welcome to print out or reproduce this PDF for educational purposes. For a high-quality print-ready PDF, email us at kidsfirst@email.alaskachildrenstrust.org
Art and Photo Submissions
Artwork submitted by (from top left): Roger Stalker, Manfried West, David Orellana, Waatsasdiyei Apayuk Yates, Demaris DeeDee Hudson, Michael Kinville, Azaleah Mamea, Charles Brumlo, Vonnie Gaither
Submit your National Day of Remembrance of US Indigenous Boarding Schools artwork to us here
Videos by Waatsasdiyei Joe Yates of Alaskan Films of his daughter, Nayak’aq
ACT Team shared their reasons to wear orange on September 30!
Past Orange Shirt Day Events
Fairbanks
Northern and Interior Alaska Association for the Education of Young Children
The NIAAEYC's Early Childhood Conference happens to fall on Orange Shirt Day this fall. Likewise, the organization plans to use this as an opportunity to raise awareness about the day, showing a movie on the history of boarding schools followed by a session for viewers to unpack and discuss what they learn, and how to advocate about the issue. There will be a subsequent sign-holding event outside, in downtown Fairbanks, calling attention to the trauma associated with boarding schools and raising further awareness about historical injustice. This programming all falls within the context of a discussion of trauma's impact on early childhood development. Funds will go towards providing materials for the sign-holding event including signs and markers.
Nenana
Railbelt Mental Health and Addictions
RMHA plans to host a variety of related events over the week leading up to Orange Shirt Day, all focused on discussing the history of boarding schools through a lens of building resiliency and fostering communal strength today. Discussion among students of several age groups will follow showings of the "Grandpa's Drum" Molly of Denali episode and feature ACT’s Orange Shirt Day toolkit. Funds will be spent on light snacks and drinks, as well as orange-colored pencils and markers for individuals to design and draw their own orange shirts.
Anchorage
Tyson Elementary School Indigenous Education Program
At Tyson Elementary School, funding will ensure that every class is able to participate in an activity for Orange Shirt Day. Students will engage in age-appropriate lesson plans developed in collaboration with the district's Indigenous Education Department to teach about the day and its historical significance, while also participating in activities such as coloring pages and a group collage. Besides raising awareness of long-ignored historical trauma, the event will promote healing by showing that today the school system values children and their heritage, and wants them to be strong, know who they are, and where they come from.
Anchorage Education Association
AEA plans to host a Family and Community Night where all are invited to wear orange for National Day of Remembrance. Following a student-friendly land acknowledgement, speeches by an Inupiaq artist and World Eskimo-Indian Olympic (WEIO) athletes as well as a screening of the Molly of Denali episode "Grandpa's Drum" aim to teach students important facts about history and what it means to celebrate a community's traditions. Funds will go towards paying for food at the event as well as compensating the WEIO speakers.
Anchorage School District – Indigenous Education
After consultation with the Alaska Native leadership council, the Indigenous Education Department plans to sell orange shirts and host a family function at East High School as part of its open house. At this event, the department hopes to share information and hang banners and posters, augmented with in-classroom presentations to students on why the day matters and what it represents, including more in-depth information and history appropriate to a high school audience. Funds will be spent on purchasing shirts, as well as supplies for making posters and banners.
Indigenous Education Anchorage School District
At Springhill Elementary School, the Anchorage School District's Indigenous Education Department will facilitate readings from age-appropriate books in classrooms, making and hanging posters that raise awareness about the history and importance of Orange Shirt Day, and using heat-transfer vinyl to print orange shirts for students and their families. Funds will be spent on heat-transfer vinyl and books for in-class reading.
Hmoob Cultural Center of Alaska
For Orange shirt day the Hmoob Cultural Center will host an event with activities for students on September 26th. At the event, students will learn about why every child matters and why we celebrate Orange Shirt Day with Indigenous learning videos and books. Funds will be spent on purchasing books written by Indigenous authors as well as orange shirts and supplies to decorate them.
Alaska Children’s Museum
To honor and recognize Orange Shirt Day, Alaska Children's Museum plans to host its Worldwide Day of Play. The event, taking place at Town Square Park in Anchorage, will include museum toys and activities available for children, coloring pages, a viewing of "Grandpa's Drum," as well as an instructor teaching Alaska Native games. The ACM will also distribute over 100 orange shirts, along with stencils and other materials for decorating them.
Juneau
There will be a Truth-speaking at Harborview Elementary School followed by a Release of the Grief ceremony. Then they will celebrate with kids from the local area- they will be singing at the event. The Quakers are helping with an Indigenous craft market and will be helping feed everyone.
Mid-morning wave on Orange Shirt Day. A few of the Juneau schools are helping raise more awareness!
Juneau Montessori School
Partnering with local elders and community members from the Haa Tóoch Lichéesh Coalition, the Juneau Montessori School will host a series of events including a pop-up art sale featuring the work of indigenous artists, restorative healing and talking circles, as well as singing, dancing, and a presentation from an Alaska Native speaker, designed to promote healing by sharing stories and bringing the community together. Funds will be spent on orange shirts to be sold in a fundraiser for the Alaska Native Sisterhood.
Juneau School District
At the Harborview Elementary School, the Tlingit Culture, Language, & Literacy Program will host an orange shirt making event titled "X'atulitseen Haa Yatx'i" for 6th and 7th graders, using heat transfer to print a design created by local artists. This event is designed to coincide with a week of education about the history of boarding schools, offering students a positive community building activity after learning about very heavy and difficult, though necessary subject matter. Money will be spent on blank orange shirts, heat transfer supplies, as well as food for the event.
Kenai Peninsula
The Study
The Study will host a school event with educational components sent home in packets as well as activities during the afternoon of September 29th, while working with the Kenaitze Indian Tribe to support and Alaska Native cultural activity associated with Orange Shirt Day. Funds will be spent on supplies, snacks, and other items needed for the event on the 29th, as well as printing educational materials.
Southcentral Alliance for Family Resilience
SAFR plans to screen an Orange Shirt Day history video at one of their monthly meetings which consist of youth and family focused agencies/programs in the Kenai Peninsula region. Alongside this programming, the organization also plans to promote the History and Hope plan for additional training opportunities throughout the coming year. Funds will go towards printing materials to be provided to schools in the local community, as well as providing materials for advertising and in-school activities.
Bristol Bay
Bristol Bay 4-H
Deanna Baier of Bristol Bay 4-H plans to travel around the Bristol Bay area, visiting Dillingham, Aleknagik, New Stuyahok, Ekwok, Koliganek, Clarks Point, and possibly Manokotak and Togiak as well, where she hopes to provide students with age-appropriate educational programming about Orange Shirt Day and its history. She will screen the Molly of Denali "Grandpa's Drum" episode and discuss her father's experience at a boarding school, and after that teach students how to make traditional Yupik drums to reinforce and strengthen traditional culture within communities. Funds will be allocated towards purchasing drum-making materials.
Aleutian Islands
Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc.
The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association plans to host a Lunch and Learn for the employees. Funds will be spent on Orange Shirt Day Learning Toolkits to be sent home with attendees, providing them with orange shirts as well as art supplies with which to decorate them, designed to bring important conversations into the home in the positive framework of the family, which the association believes is most conducive to healing.
Kodiak Island
Kodiak Island Borough School District
The Kodiak Island Borough School District will host a tie-dye shirt event, with shirts and food provided for participants, with support from the Native Parent Education Committee. Funds will be spent on tye die supplies and food.