For the past six years the Orillia Public Library has put on an increasingly ambitious Remembrance Day celebration for students who attend local schools. The program won a provincial library award in 2018.
Over the years, library staff have transformed the main floor of the library into a mini-museum where students can interact with stories, photos, and historical artifacts.
“It’s a big deal. Last year we had over 800 students come through over two days,” said Jayne Turvey, Community Services Coordinator for the Orillia Public Library.
Unfortunately, this year the pandemic has cancelled the in-person events. However, the event is moving to a virtual platform which has drawn interest from many students and schools from all across Simcoe County, Turvey told OrilliaMatters.
“We’ve put together several videos that concentrate on local stories. One of them is about several people in Orillia who were impacted by World War I - not just soldiers but people on the homefront,” Turvey explains.
Students who watch the online videos will also learn about a championship hockey team from Orillia whose players enlisted in the First World War and fought in the trenches. The story also has a unique connection to former Toronto Maple Leafs owner and fellow soldier Conn Smythe.
Apart from the First World War, students will also learn about the different battles that took place during World War II and the effect they had on local people.
“One of our military collectors who we partner with brought in all kinds of artifacts from the Second World War and we’ve recorded him discussing some of the items that he has in his collection and how they related to the war,” Turvey said.
The final video of the collection is a salute to a World War I veteran who walks down Mississaga Street en route to the cenotaph at Veterans' Park, adjacent to the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 34.
Over the last few weeks, Turvey has been working tirelessly to create 632 playbooks that include questions based on the videos for students to complete as a small project.
“Students will be getting these (Tuesday) morning after they watch the videos and there will be questions pertaining to what they see, and once they have participated they can put their name into an online draw for a prize,” Turvey explained.
Turvey estimates that over 1,000 local students will be watching the library’s Remembrance Day commemoration when it goes live tomorrow at 9 a.m. on their YouTube channel.
While the videos were primarily created for educational purposes for local youth, Turvey says everybody is welcome to watch them and participate.
“We are hoping we get some good feedback because we have never done anything like this before,” Turvey said.
“Normally we partner with museums who bring artifacts and things for the students to see, but we’ve had to condense it so much this year, so it’s basically local stories because that’s what’s important and these kids need to learn our history," she said.
Turvey is the daughter of a Second World War prisoner of war and the granddaughter of a World War I veteran, so she has lots to remember and think about on Remembrance Day.
Turvey says the goal of this year’s virtual Remembrance Day event is to give local youth a reason to remember.
“We can’t ask people to remember if they have nothing to remember, so we are hoping we give them some stories of local people and then they will have something to remember on Remembrance Day,” she said.
“It’s important to keep the memory of these people who served for our country going.”
