Steinbach comes together in spirit of Orange Shirt Day

Mino Odewin, a non-profit in Steinbach, organized an Orange Shirt Day Walk on the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation to honour residential school survivors and remember its co-founder, Greg “Featherman” Roulette, who recently passed away.

Orange Shirt Day is held on the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, Sept. 30, to honour Indigenous children who were separated from their families and placed in residential schools.

Close to 200 residents gathered in orange shirts and walked from city hall to the Steinbach Arts Centre, where a ceremony and a feast were held. The event also consisted of a drum group, a dedicated elder, and a dancer.

Mino Odewin co-founder Monique Curci said they cooked the food at the arts centre and all the meat was donated to them by the Earl’s Meat Market owner and Steinbach mayor Earl Funk.

Curci said they held many meetings to plan for the event, and many of its members have experience in community engagement, which helped them organize the event.

“I think a lot of us have some similar experiences. So we just kind of took that in and we just kind of made a plan,” she said.

Curci also spoke about their late co-founder and said this year’s walk was important because Roulette used to do a lot of cultural activities, and they wanted to commemorate him.

“Our co-founder passed away within the last month, and so this walk was because he was a big part of this. He did a lot of our cultural stuff,” Curci said.

Curci said Mino Odewen also wanted to organize the walk because they wanted to bring the Indigenous people together.

“We didn’t have a big community here, and so we’re trying to build that community,” she said. “We were a bit nervous about hosting these events, but it’s nice to see the blend of different nations coming together to support us.”

Curci said this was their second time organizing the event and said this year they had a bigger turnout of 190 people.

“Last year was our first time hosting it, so we kind of learned a little bit. We just kind of winged it,” Curci said. “We’re learning as we go, and we hope next year will be even better.