OLDS — The Boys and Girls Club of Olds and Area (BGCOA) has presented a cheque for more than $1,880 to the Mountain View Moccasin House Society (MVMHS).
That donation was made earlier this month at the BGCOA's main office in Olds.
Lauren LeBlanc, youth and community outreach director for BGCOA, presented the cheque to MVMHS volunteer Robyn Sorensen. Jamie Woods, the BGCOA’s director of child care programs, also took part in the ceremony.
The cheque represents proceeds from the sale of orange shirts sold for Orange Shirt Day.
Orange Shirt Day is held in late fall every year to highlight the negative impact that residential schools had on Indigenous and Inuit students and to raise awareness about bullying and racism.
LeBlanc said the Boys and Girls Club wanted to reach out to indigenous people, especially in the wake the trauma spurred last spring and since then by the discovery of what appear to be unmarked graves of Indigenous students near residential schools.
“With the residential schools and all the talk of that this year and everything that’s come up, we really wanted to support something local,” she said.
"We have so many children here from different cultures and different ways of life that we just really want to make sure that we are educating ourselves and educating the children here at BGC and being part of the community.”
Woods said there will “definitely” be more partnerships between the two organizations in the future.
Sorensen was grateful to receive the funds on behalf of MVMHS.
"That is so awesome, because we have been the Moccasin House Society for about two years now and throughout COVID, it was kind of tough to get going and rolling and whatnot, " she said.
"It’s very awesome to have communication between all members of the community. And that’s our main goal, is to spread awareness and open lines of communication.”
