Ponoka Orange Shirt Day contest winner off to Nunavut [Video]

A Ponoka school is celebrating a hat trick of wins in a national contest for Orange Shirt Day.

The Orange Shirt Day Design Contest, held by the Orange Shirt Society, was open to all Kindergarten to Grade 12 students across Canada.

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The aim is to help spread awareness of the ongoing impacts of residential schools. Using their art skills and creativity, students submit designs and the meaning behind them.

For the third year in a row, a student from St. Augustine School in Ponoka won the contest.

“I genuinely was so surprised, because it never crossed my mind that I would win,” Aliyah Bautista, the 2024 contest winner, said.

“It was really a shocking thing to find out.”

Bautista wanted to emphasize the child in the phrase “every child matters” with her piece.

Aliyah Bautista’s winning design for the Orange Shirt Day Design Contest. …