Kelsey Israel and Crystal Forrest are working to spread love from Saint John to Kamloops. (Photo courtesy of Hearts of Saint John)
Saint Johners are pouring their hearts onto the pages of a new book that will be sent to a grieving First Nations community near Kamloops.
Hearts of Saint John will contain 215 pages of hand-written notes of support for the Tk’emlu’ps te Secwe’pemc community as it mourns the loss of 215 children from the Kamloops residential school.
Kelsey Israel says her ‘bonus mother’ Crystal Forrest, who grew up on Chippewas of the Thames First Nation and is now married to Israel’s father, reached out to her with the idea of expressing condolences and sending love to those grieving the victims of the residential school.
“We’re doing this to show we’re a city of love,” Israel said. “We want to show them they have just as much support as us.”
She says the response so far has been overwhelming, as everyone they’ve reached out to has expressed enthusiasm and excitement about the project.
Last weekend at a vigil for the 215 children at King’s Square, Hearts of Saint John raised nearly $500 to go toward residential school survivors.
“Our response is absolutely mind-blowing. Everyone has wanted to sign a heart that we’ve reached out to. There hasn’t been one business that hasn’t said ‘yes, can you drop off 10 hearts? Can you drop off 20 hearts?'” Israel said.
Mostly, respondents have expressed condolences in their messages. Israel says the hope is they can show the Tk’emlu’ps te Secwe’pemc community they are not going through this tragedy alone.
“A lot of people are kind of speechless. There’s no right or wrong words in this, it’s hard to find the words to describe the way we feel about this,” she said.
Much of the conversation since the children in Kamloops were discovered has focused around continuing to search residential school sites for other unmarked graves.
Israel says Hearts of Saint John is a project that can be continued to show support for more than the Kamloops community.
“As each of the nations dig and find unfortunately other marked graves, because we know it’s going to happen, we want to be able to show the other nations our support, just this is our first start,” she said.
Anyone who wants to write a message to be included in Hearts of Saint John is asked to contact the group through their Facebook page.
