Pro Metal Industries Ltd. is helping by giving back to the community, one orange feather at a time.
An initiative that began three years ago aims to honour children who attended residential schools and did not make it home. The Pasqua First Nation-owned metal company started the project in the summer of 2021, when findings of unmarked graves were being announced.
“It started in Kamloops and then in Cowessess, and at that time we had some staff here internally that wanted to just show their support for the project … as an Indigenous-owned business,” said Treena Amyotte, Pro Metal Industries business development director. “The staff came up with this idea that we produce a metal feather and that we could donate the proceeds to a cause.”
The orange feather consists of a boy and a girl, moccasins, a sun and a pair of wings. The two children are pictured wearing their traditional attire, along with a pair of moccasins to represent their journey home to the spirit world, with a sun to guide them and a pair of wings to symbolize that they are angels now.
“I designed this feather with a tenderness in my heart for the children that were forced to attend residential school,” artist Jonas Thompson stated on the Pro Metal website. “I think it is important that we remember these children as they were, and always will be – in their traditional clothing, braided, gifted (represented with their feathers), strong, valued, and loved. We cherish our children – Gilesbie iyuhana te unhinabi. We will always cherish our children.”
The orange feather pins for this year’s Every Child Matters campaign sold out in a matter of days. The second batch of pins will be ready in a few weeks, just in time for Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30.
“We feel that if we can use our platform to help spread (and) create awareness about the history of residential schools, we’re absolutely more than willing to do that again,” Amyotte said. “We’re 100 per cent First Nations-owned. It is very near and dear to our leadership.”
More information on the Feather Project 2023 Pins can be found on the Pro Metal website.