One day isn’t enough.
Mission Friendship Centre executive director Dawn Styran shared that message on Friday afternoon (May 3) at an annual event commemorating Red Dress Day.
Red Dress Day (May 5) honours and brings awareness to missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people in Canada every year since 2010. The gathering at the Friendship Centre featured a welcome song, speakers, stories, snacks and a drum circle.
A crowd also marched through First Avenue in downtown Mission with banners and songs as part of the event.
Before the march, Phyllis Star Blanket spoke about her two-year-old granddaughter Aleka Gonzales, who died in 2014 as a result of snake venom poisoning. Her granddaughter would have been 12 years old this year.
“She missed out on growing up with her sisters and brothers. She could’ve done anything she wanted to do,” Star Blanket told those in attendance.
Star Blanket shared her story at the 2023 event as well. She said this year was harder.
“Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s hard. But I really want to thank the [Friendship Centre] from the bottom of my heart because they’ve been here for me through all of this,” Star Blanket said.
A man pleaded guilty to failing to provide the necessaries of life in 2019 in relation to the incident.
“It’s important for me to come to these marches because it helps me to heal inside. It lets people know that there are still monsters out there,” Star Blanket said.
Star Blanket was one of several speakers to share their experiences with people they knew who went missing or were murdered.
Mission Friendship Centre outreach worker Susan Smith spoke about her sister who was killed in 1989 in Manitoba. She told the crowd she normally doesn’t share the story. Smith read a newspaper clipping about her death and said the man who was charged with murder spent two years in jail.
“Awareness is part of the broader march toward reconciliation and the visual reminder of these red dresses will be an opportunity to remember and reflect on the loss,” Smith said earlier in the event.
Donna Lagimodiere, the alcohol and drug counsellor with the Friendship Centre, spoke about her past experience as a 14-year-old runaway hitchhiking in Alberta. She said intuition helped save her from a dangerous situation with someone who offered to drive her to Edmonton.
“I know if I would have gotten in that vehicle at that time, I would have not been here today,” Lagimodiere said.
The Friendship Centre’s services include outreach, alcohol and addiction counselling, elders and youth activities, a community kitchen, and community health and wellness services.
READ MORE: ‘I wish it would just stop’: Mission Friendship Centre hosts Red Dress Day event