St. James Collegiate was one of over 50 organizations across Manitoba to receive funding to support Truth and Reconciliation activities this year through the Province's Orange Shirt Day Fund.
Akina Indinawemaaganidog (All Our Relations) received $8,000 thanks to project coordinator Tara Tuchscherer (pictured right, with students Kayson P. and Donavon C.). The educator is a long-time SJC teacher, Indigenous ally, and environmental champion.
Tara applied in June and received notification that the project would receive funding in August. “I was really excited," she explains, adding that she is grateful and is always looking for ways to fund her ideas. “I always have lots of ideas."
Funding will go to support honorariums, transportation, supplies, and other costs to further Indigenous learnings, workshops, activities, and field trips connected with Orange Shirt Day and throughout the year.
While Tara can't say for sure why her project was selected for funding this year, she points out that SJC does a great job of supporting ongoing learning, community connections, and helping students reclaim their culture and language.
“Truth and Reconciliation is a part of the fabric of our school," she says. “We're pretty good here at really spanning across the school year."
Week of Action: Water Walk, Residential School Visit, and Sacred Medicines
While SJC's Week of Action for Truth and Reconciliation began on September 28, cultural events kicked off a week earlier on Wednesday, September 23, when a group of students rode the bus to Churchill Drive to join an early morning community walk to honour water and the Red River (pictured above).
The Miskwaagamiiwi-Ziibi Water Walk was organized by the University of Manitoba's Centre for Human Rights Research and started at sunrise (7:15 a.m.) at the Southwood Circle Dock and ended approximately 30 km downstream at the Main Street Boat Launch.
SJC staff and students walked with the group for approximately 5.5 km, ending their participation at The Forks. The students drummed, sang, and many wore ribbon skirts.
“It was a beautiful day," says Tara. “It was very powerful for me, just walking with them, and just being with the kids, and just how proud they were and engaged and supportive of each other and the walkers that we were with."
The school's
Week of Action for Truth and Reconciliation has featured multiple events and learnings so far.
On Tuesday, September 29, students visited the
Assiniboia Residential School memorial site in Winnipeg
(pictured above). They also heard
from residential school Survivor Betty Ross. The Elder from Pimicikamak First Nation
(Cross Lake) read from
Sugar Falls, a graphic novel by David A. Robertson that tells her story. She attended two residential schools, including the Assiniboine Residential School, and spent over 15 years in the system.
“She read with us and shared her experience at the school. She was very generous with her time answering questions and chatting with students who wanted the opportunity," explains Tara.
From Monday to Friday, students and staff are involved in school-wide learnings about the four sacred medicines—tobacco, sweetgrass, cedar, and sage.
Tara says the teachings make use of the medicine wheel and include hands-on activities like making tobacco ties—small bundles of ceremonial tobacco wrapped in cloth (pictured above left)—and creating sage seed bombs (pictured above right) to disperse the native plant through the area. On Friday, students will make etchings of cedar leaves and learn how to make cedar tea.
Activities will end with a sacred fire to recognize the equinox, Orange Shirt Day, and the National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People, which takes place on Sunday, October 4, 2026.
Extending the Teachings: Drumming Group Lessons, Artists, Ongoing School Lessons, and Bison SculptureFor Tara, Reconciliation is an ongoing process that doesn't start or end with Orange Shirt Day.
She is also “really conscious" of the emotional, spiritual, and physical demands placed on Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and Survivors to attend events and be available in the lead up to, during, and following the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
She says part of her approach to Reconciliation more generally involves finding opportunities to “invit[e] people into our school beyond that time."
For Akina Indinawemaaganidog (All Our Relations), Tara has plans to access community members to support a number of projects.
She'll be bringing in traditional drumming instructors to lead workshops for the school's Drumming Group.
“We have a really strong group of Indigenous kids that have emerged in the last year," she says, referring to students who drum for major school events, including graduation, OSD, and other cultural ceremonies (pictured above).
“I really wanted to be able to celebrate them," she says, and “do it in a really, really Good Way."
Tara will also be bringing in Indigenous artists to mentor some student artists and lead collaborative art projects. And she'll also be bringing in Elders, community members, and Knowledge Keepers to lead monthly Truth and Reconciliation lessons with staff, which prepare educators to lead classroom lessons. While it's something SJC has done for several years, Tara has often led the planning and execution of staff sessions.
“We're bringing in more authentic voices and hearing from Knowledge Keepers and such directly," she explains.
Finally, Tara is working with the Living Prairie Museum (LPM) and Indigenous land-based educator and photographer Britt Ross to pilot a Bison sculpture initiative that will help “carry" seeds from the school's prairie garden (sage pictured above) into the local ecosystem.
Shops students have already created the wooden frame of the bison (pictured above from LPM bison example, Multicultural U). The next step involves harvesting willows to create the body of the sculpture. Lastly, everyone in the school will roll harvested native seeds into clay beads. The completed beads will be hung like ornaments onto the bison.
The final sculpture will be placed outside.
“It looks like this big furry bison, but it has these seeds that are distributed through the environment," she says.
“We're gonna be the bison, we're gonna spread these seeds," Tara explains. “But also our knowledge and our understanding about our role in Reconciliation, and learning the truth, and how our students are spreading those seeds of knowledge."
Tara hopes that this pilot will help the Living Prairie Museum develop a program that can be shared with other schools in the future.
She expects the bison sculpture initiative to get underway this fall, with the final placement on school grounds this spring.
Tara Tuchscherer received the Manitoba Teaching Excellence Award in 2024 for her exemplary professional practices and an exceptional ability to inspire students and colleagues.
No stranger to grant applications, Tara has also received funding in the past from the Teachers' Idea Fund, the Winnipeg Foundation, the United Way, and the World Wildlife Fund to name a few. Most of her projects involve work related to Reconciliation, cultural inclusivity, and/or respect for the environment.
