TRU campuses are closed on this day.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day both take place on Sept. 30. It is a national holiday, meant to honour Indigenous peoples and recognize their contributions, while also drawing awareness to the historic wrongs of residential schools.

Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day founded by Phyllis Webstad, who is from Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation (Canoe Creek Indian Band). She is a residential school Survivor who, as a child on her first day at the school, was stripped of all the clothes she was wearing, including the orange shirt her grandmother had bought her. The orange shirt is a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.

There are events taking place on campus on Fri., Sept. 27, and we encourage everyone to wear orange shirts to show their support.