VIDEO: Central Okanagan residents mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

There were a good number of orange shirts to be seen in Kelowna on this, the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

The day of recognition comes four months after the disturbing discovery of 215 unmarked graves outside the Kamloops Residential School.

Since then, there have been hundreds and hundreds more discovered near former residential schools across the country.

Many people are making a point of thinking about it and talking about it today.

"I think it's important to remember our history and not pretend it didn't happen," said one woman who was wearing a symbolic orange shirt.

"In honour of those lives lost and the pain that we caused with the residential schools."

At the Okanagan Heritage Museum, there were interactive exhibits to mark the day.

There was also a station where people can make a pledge of action on the issue.

"There's one thing to learn about the history which is incredibly important," said Museum spokesperson Jen Garner.

"It's also incredibly important to take action and to do something."

George Fosbery took some action.

He helped set up a drum circle on Westbank First Nation land.

Fosbery's mother was taken from her family and placed in a residential school.

"My mother was taken right from here at the age of six, along with her oldest sister and her brother," he said.

"They keep calling it a school, I call it a concentration camp", added Fosbery. "That's really what it was."

He has mixed feelings about the day.

"It's meaningful in some sense. In another sense, it's another form of lip service."

He hopes that this leads to new meaningful relationships in the future.

"The good thing of it is it's educating people across Canada no matter what," said Fosbery.

Close to a hundred people came together for that drum circle outside the Elders Hall Thursday afternoon despite an afternoon downpour.