Since the first discovery of 215 unmarked graves at a former residential school in Kamloops B.C., Deborah Young has collected over 300 baby vamps, the beaded design atop a moccasin, to commemorate the children who never came home from Canada's residential schools. Vamps were received from across North America and as far as the U.K.

Young asked for participants to make one lone vamp instead of a matching pair. She is currently completing her Ph.D. at Carleton's school of social work, which is involved in the project, and many submissions were received from other social work departments.

Young holds up the vamp reading "215" she made to answer another woman's call, which inspired her to do the same for the Ottawa and Carleton communities. Each time the number of unmarked graves rose, Young beaded a vamp with the new number. "My goal is to tell a story of commemoration of young lives lost, strength and resiliency of the survivors, and a community united in grief and love," said Young.

The Odamin, or heart berry, appears in Indigenous teachings around love and death. In this context, it signifies a journey to the afterlife where one is loved and supported. For this reason, the heart berry appears on multiple vamps Deborah received. A 2014 report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission documents over 4,000 children who died at residential schools in Canada, but suggests the number is likely higher due to unmarked graves and improper documentation.

Many of the vamps came with personal letters explaining how meaningful it was to contribute to the collection and detailing the intent and emotion that went into each bead.

Each of these seal skin vamps with a teardrop commemorates one of the best friends of their creator, an Inuk woman. All three attended residential school together but only one returned home. The vamps arrived on November 29th, months after the call ended, along with a letter explaining how healing the opportunity to create them was. "It seems fitting that these are the last two vamps for this project because it represents our truth, our grief, and our humanity," Young wrote on Instagram.

Young hasn't decided the best way to honour the letters she received over the project. One option could be burning them, she said.

These two cards, vamps, and medicines (in the felt package) were sent to Young from a mother and daughter. "The number one came to me one night," wrote the mother of her red vamp, "the number keeps rising. It’s a number we have known for a long time and it’s a number we were told…the number one is for the first child. There should never have been a number one." The Canadian government estimates that approximately 150,000 children attended residential schools in Canada.

Deborah received so many vamps, she had to get help sorting them by colour and organizing them into freezer bags for safekeeping until they can be displayed. She is extremely careful with the vamps, "they're living, you know?"

The author of this card participated in the call because as a white settler she wanted to learn more about Canada's history of disenfranchisement and genocide against Indigenous communities. Young answered when she read that the author, close in age to her parents, grew up in the same town where they attended residential school. This was the only letter to which Young responded.

Young surveys the tape on her living room floor mapping out the final framed collection. It will be 12 feet long and unveiled in Carleton's school of social work on the next National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in 2022.. The vamps will be arranged in flowing streams with four circles curving through the pattern.

This green vamp was created during one of two Zoom beading circles hosted over the summer as part of Young's call. A Carleton social work student beading for the first time kept her camera off the entire circle, but turned it on at the end to show the group she had created a vamp reading "You are loved". This piece will be at the centre of the collection when it is framed.