The Swift Current Comprehensive high school joined others across the country in celebrating orange shirt day, although they were a day late. 

September 30th was national Orange Shirt Day across the province, but due to the weather conditions, the SCCHS had decided to postpone the event to October 1st. 

Orange Shirt Day is a national truth and reconciliation day that honours and remembers residential school survivors, their families as well as those who never made it home. 

Yesterday the Comprehensive high school was one of two schools in the province that was chosen to receive orange shirts, and they were able to host an assembly for the day. 

Lisa Kuntz, curriculum coordinator with Chinook School Division said the division wanted to host the day because they feel it's important to recognize the day. 

"Chinook school division is dedicated to moving forward in partnership with Indigenous communities in a spirit of reconciliation and collaboration. Apart of this is learning, remembering and honouring and we are able to do that by celebrating orange shirt day within our schools." 

The event took place in the gymnasium of the comp. They started with a prayer that was given to the staff and students by elder Sylvia Thorburn, followed by students showcasing what they have learned about residential schools. They received a video message from Chief Perry Bellguarde from the Assembly of First Nations on the significant of orange shirt day followed by a group photo and concluded with a walk around the track. 

Leading up to the event, Larry Kielo, principal of the Comprehensive High School, said students and staff from the school found ways to connect to orange shirt day by doing many different activities. 

"We had a wide array of activities to make connections with the kids for them to see how truly important it was from them to learn more about this part of our history as we move forward." 

These events helped give the staff and students more of a background and knowledge to help them make a connection with what they had learned with the activities and during the assembly. 

"We thought it was important that students just don't see it as an assembly but as an extension of what they've been learning about in their classrooms," said Keilo. "Whether that's been in a physed classroom or in an ELA classroom or a social studies classroom. We have been helping kids understand and see the connection between what the day means and then what the assembly means today as well." 

Kielo said the assembly had gone very well. 

"We had a number of dignitaries come in to show students how important coming together really is around a topic and around something in our history that we want to move forward with. Our kids had a good connection with understanding why they were in the assembly." 

He added it was an honour to host the assembly. 

"Having our one thousand students' body all dressed in orange coming together and being able to use that togetherness in terms of understanding what we can all do to move our world further into the future in a better way."