The John C. Yesno Education Centre was more than just a school for students and teachers in Eabametoong First Nation.
It was a place where children in the northwestern Ontario community made friends and played sports, and community members gathered for everything from feasts to flea markets.
“When I first started school, I experienced all kinds of abuse,” said Mary Okeese, who has taught kindergarten there for over 30 years. “When I started working here, that was my healing journey from all the stuff that I experienced.
“I thought of the school as my friend.”
Nearly 300 students from junior kindergarten to Grade 9 have been displaced
