Telemiracle 49 has announced that Saskatoon’s Vincent Massey Powwow and Drum Troupe will be kicking off this year’s fundraiser, which will be running on March 1 and 2, 2025.
MBC had a chance to talk with Shelley Laliberte and the students who make up the Vincent Massey Powwow and Drum Troupe via Teams. Ahmed, Jamie, Paige, Maddie, Olivia, Charlie, Liam, Jack, Mason, Oliver, Christian, Jacob, Taylor, Aaron, Darian, and Constance were a few of the students that hopped on the call.
“We’ll have our drum group that’ll sing a song. We haven’t selected the song yet, and then the students surrounding the drum are all our dancers,” said Shelley Laliberte, Vincent Massey School. “We will have different varieties, like in the style of dance; each child will get to choose their style of dance.”
There will be about 30 students in attendance at the Telemiracle performance. That includes the drum group and dancers. There will be about 12 drummers and about 20 dancers.
“They just like to go out and showcase their style of dance, and they like to be in the community and be a part of the community. So we’re always getting requests to go showcase our group to other schools,” explained Laliberte.
The students have been performing together at other schools in the area, showcasing their talents, so when it came to the Telemiracle audition the students were well prepared to showcase their talents.
“This is our idea of reconciliation, like not all our kids in our group are indigenous,” said Laliberte. “We open it up to everyone, and we allow everyone to come in as long as we teach them the cultural part of the program and the respect of the regalia and everything. So that’s our way of teaching the younger generation, the next generation, our culture.”
Vincent Massey School is a community school based out of Saskatoon.
The students will be running fundraisers for Telemiracle at the school. Some of the ideas the students had were to do a hot dog sale, a popcorn sale, candy grams, and different activities within our school and our community.
If you would like to contribute to their fundraising efforts, you can reach out to Shelley Laliberte at Vincent Massey School in Saskatoon.
Here is the full interview from our on-demand library, found at mbcradio.com. The interview aired on the North at Noon on January 8, 2025.
Photo provided by Shelley Laliberte.