Schools, businesses and even health facilities in Steinbach showed their support to the Humboldt Broncos Thursday by wearing sports jerseys.

The junior hockey team was involved in a horrific crash last week Friday, killing 16 on board. Even before the weekend was over, a national campaign had started, encouraging people to wear their jerseys on April 12th for Jersey Day.

Noah Stott is a grade four student at Woodlawn School in Steinbach. Stott says he was extremely sad when he learned the news last weekend of the bus crash. And when he heard about Jersey Day, he knew this was something he wanted to encourage at Woodlawn.

Students at Woodlawn were invited to wear jerseys or the Broncos green and yellow colours to show their support. Teacher Michael Bourget guesses as many as 150 students took part on Thursday. Not only that, but students also dropped off more than $500 in donations for the Humboldt GoFundMe campaign. Stott explains how that money will be used.

"For the families that have to pay for their kids in the hospital if they broke a bone or something," he says.

Stott admits he was surprised to see the outpouring of support shown by Woodlawn students Thursday.

Having just wrapped up a championship season with the Steinbach Millers, Stott says when he learned of the crash last weekend, he immediately thought of his own team.

Students and staff at Woodlawn School show their support for Humboldt (Photo credit: Woodlawn School)

Meanwhile, for Bourget, the tragedy hits close to home. Having grown up in Saskatchewan, Bourget says Humboldt is a place he has visited many times and the location of the crash is a stretch of highway he has driven.

"It's tough to think about," he says.

And when you consider those were kids on the bus, Bourget says because he works with children all day it becomes that much more real.

But Bourget says because he teaches Elementary students, the crash isn't something that a lot of kids at Woodlawn are talking about during the day. If the topic was to come up, Bourget says staff would encourage students to speak to their parents.