An Indigenous-owned printing company in New Brunswick will produce orange shirt day T-shirts for one of the world's largest auto manufacturers.
The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation — commonly known as orange shirt day — honours the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families and communities.
General Motors (GM) has asked Beth Cromwell’s printing company to produce orange shirts commemorating the day.
"GM found me through the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business,” said Cromwell, owner of Mayday Print & Swagshop.
“They phoned and reached out to see if we'd be interested in doing their orange shirt campaign this year. So of course, we said yes and they also gave me a wonderful task of picking an artist to do the design for the shirt,” Cromwell said.
She chose artist Robin Paul, who commonly works in a variety of mediums such as beadwork.
"I was honoured to be asked to be a part of it,” said Paul, adding she wants her design to resonate on a national scale.
"I wanted to make sure all of the communities would be highlighted because you usually only hear like First Nations children,” Paul said. “But I wanted to highlight Inuit peoples and also include Metis.”
Cromwell and her team of four are excited that their creation will be worn nationally for such an important cause.
So far, GM has ordered over 1,100 orange shirts since they started printing four weeks ago.
"It's actually our first national campaign, it's gone so easily,” Cromwell said.
“Of course, summers are slow and through the pandemic was slow as well. So having this huge order for the summer has just been fun,” she said.
Paul prepared three different designs for the company to choose from.
"Those symbols are going around the Indigenous child in the middle of the shirt, and it's surrounded by a braid of sweetgrass,” Paul said. “Which is one of our sacred medicines. So I thought that would be important to include.”
Both Paul and Cromwell say they’re excited to see their product across the nation.
"I was in complete agreement with the one they chose it's beautiful,” Cromwell said.
