Orange Ribbon initiative ongoing for National Day for Truth & Reconciliation

By Rob Paul

Though National Day for Truth & Reconciliation passed on September 30, Caledon Public Library (CPL) is running an initiative at all its branches until the end of October to keep momentum going.

To acknowledge the victims and trauma caused by residential schools in Canada, ribbons will be displayed at all branches throughout the month.

As a leader in the community, CPL has made it a priority to not only honour the children lost throughout October, but to prioritize keeping the reconciliation conversation going by providing resources and information to the people of Caledon.

CPL's Manager of Youth services Laurie Groe led the ribbon tying initiative, which began September 25, as a way for the community to not only recognize and learn about what has happened in Canada's past, but to make a real effort in the reconciliation process. 

“Back at the end of May 2021, there was the tragic discovery of the 215 unmarked graves that were at a former site of a residential school,” said Groe. “Since then, there's literally been upwards of a thousand unmarked graves across Canada at other residential school sites. As part of Truth and Reconciliation, public libraries we have connected with have discussed ways of honouring those children. So, the orange ribbon campaign wasn't an original idea by us (CPL), but we felt it was important to do something to mark that tragedy with respect to the learning and reconciliation process for our community.

“We decided that the week previous to September 30—which is now federally recognized as National Truth and Reconciliation Day after previously being designated as Orange Shirt Day since 2013—we would do our own orange ribbon campaign. Across all of the branches we've picked spots to tie them to bring awareness to the community and show our support. We have available pre-cut orange ribbons for anyone who would like to tie a ribbon to the fence at our Bolton branch and across all of our branches there's an opportunity to do it. Anyone who goes into a branch is able to participate in the initiative, each branch has their own stash of ribbons.”

Though it's early in the initiative, Groe says it has seen plenty of community support thus far and has been a good way to engage the youth in the community on one of the most important topics in Canada. 

“So far our orange ribbon campaign is really hitting it off in our Southfields Village branch where we've already run out of ribbons,” she said. “It's heartwarming to hear that, and we'll know the exact number of those who participated at the beginning of November after it ends and we're literally going to count the number of ribbons that were tied or pinned to give a good idea of the number of community members that we've reached with this message and we're anticipating a good number.”

On top of the ribbon tying initiative, CPL has been running various programs to promote Indigenous authors and culture and will continue to run programs beyond the month of October.

“We've also been doing some special one-off programs,” she said. “We did one last week called Finding the Ojibwe Horse and it was really well received by the community. It was an author visit from an Indigenous author who is also an artisan, and she collaborates with a musician. So, they bring her Indigenous stories to life in art while he accompanies her storytelling with music. One of the key features of that collaboration is that they're also keepers of the only known Indigenous Canadian horse which was really, really interesting. So, the program included a live feed of the horses and people had a bunch of questions around the horses, which are under an endangered status. It was a very informative and engaging program and we're making all of it available to the community with barrier free access at no cost.”

Groe stresses that learning about Indigenous culture and the struggles of it in Canada isn't just something that should be a focus once a year. CPL is aiming to show it's an important year-round learning opportunity by making an effort to make resources available to inform on history and work to take steps forward.

“Truth and Reconciliation Day is not just one day of the year, it's not just on September 30,” Groe said. “For its part, Caledon Public Library has curated a number of valuable resources online for folks. We've also just introduced a truth and reconciliation kit which is a fabulous resource that actually have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action and public libraries actually reviewed it (the 94 calls to action) and made recommendations for where public libraries may be able to follow and implement some of those recommendations. Specifically for children, there's also the Spirit Bear's guide to the Truth and Reconciliation 94 calls to action. There are also great resources available by Indigenous authors—the First Nations community read program was launched at the end of the summer and there's a long list of nominated titles. It's to bring awareness to not only the tragedies around what happened this past spring, but to celebrate Indigenous culture.”

A key piece of what CPL is doing is trying to instill the importance of Indigenous culture in Canada to the youth in the community to help them better understand the significance of National Truth and Reconciliation Day. 

“We partner closely with our education partners,” Groe said. “We've continued to host our class visits program virtually over the past 18 months and we've made the resources available for patrons of all ages. I go back to our Spirit Bear guide—which is available in a PDF online for folks to read—which is directed at the youth and discusses Truth and Reconciliation with children (it's from the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada).”

Though CPL isn't yet ready to officially announce some of its future initiatives in promoting and teaching about Indigenous culture in Canada, there are plans in the works for the winter and into the upcoming year.

“It's all about making resources available, that's what we do,” Groe said. “We are in the business of information sharing and specifically valuable information that people can go to and use to learn. They can go to our website and see amazing resources and read up and learn more. We have future plans and we're making great strides in Truth and Reconciliation.”

For more information regarding CPL initiatives and resources in the reconciliation process, visit caledon.library.on.ca/truth-reconciliation.