Students from Lakewood Elementary in Langford have completed a quilt stitched together for a local residential school survivor.
It began as an idea for a project for Cherise Bouvier, the school’s librarian.
Bouvier oversees the school’s sewing club and wanted to get students involved in stitching, so she decided to get the students to create a quilt for a residential school survivor.
“It’s really warmed my heart. They have spent countless hours putting their quilt together,” said Bouvier.
The grade four and five students spent six months stitching the queen-sized quilt together, which will be going to a recipient from Quilt for Survivors. The national campaign partners quilters with those who have survived Canada’s residential school system and other Indigenous Peoples who have undergone trauma.
“It’s been a six-month [long] lesson with the students about all those things, and so it’s been a deeper conservation by doing the project,” said the librarian.
The quilt features an array of simple design shapes, such as mountains and squares, but students say the focus was on the colour pattern to honour survivors.
“Orange and red mostly because for orange shirt day and red dress day, and we think it looks super pretty,” said Harlow Bury, who helped stitch the quilt.
“We spent a lot of time working on this, and it’s cool that we were able to make this. So cool,” said student Lily Liedtke.
Bouvier says the project has enabled the students to learn more about Indigenous Peoples and the history of residential schools. Students say they’re excited to drop off the quilt to its new owner.
“We learned about the kids in residential schools and how they were treated. So I am proud that we got to make something hopefully that will make the recipient feel better,” said student Anneliese Francke.
The quilt will be presented to the entire school during an assembly on Thursday. Afterwards, the students who worked on the quilt will meet with the survivor and gift it.
Oli Herrera
