An emotional evening filled with laughter and tears as a time capsule buried by students at a local elementary school was opened for the first time.
On December 16, 1999, the time capsule was buried in the courtyard at W.J. Langlois Catholic Elementary School filled with letters, photos, and other memorabilia.
25 years later the time capsule was opened, and the contents were distributed back to their rightful owners - some of them students at the time, others who were staff.
Hundreds of people filed into the school on Wednesday night to rekindle relationships with old friends, old teachers and support staff, and look at what was buried a quarter of a century ago.
Rachel Chimienti is a LSST at W.J. Langlois and was teaching at the school when the time capsule was buried. She says people asked about the time capsule all the time.
"We've had people over many years calling the school, or reaching out, but many of our former students are now parents at our school so their kids come to our school, so even they would ask 'are you guys still doing it? Are you guys still doing it?'. And so with the help of our administration and the board allowing all of this to happen, we we were like 'oh yeah, it's a go for sure'."
Chimienti says there was a range of items inside.
"We have yearbooks from that time, we have the old VHS videos that they took videos of that time, we did like what a typical day is at W.J. Langlois. Some students made t-shirts, there was a classroom that made a quilt. But a lot of poetry, or writing, or autobiographies."
Jaime Labonte, a Grade 8 student at the time, says he put Pokémon cards in the time capsule, and was glad to have them back.
"I remember these cards, I put them in 25 years ago and I've thought about them every day since, I finally got them."
Labonte says it's nice to see everyone again.
"It's just kind of like a blast from the past seeing all of these familiar faces everywhere... just slightly older."
Jackie Houtteman, a Grade 7 student at the time, says it's embarrassing to see what she wrote in a letter to her future self.
"I thought I would be married to the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs... that's not true. And I don't have two children, and I don't live in a six bedroom mansion. So, I seem to have disappointed myself."
Houtteman says she'll never forget that day.
"I think we all remember it truthfully. It was a huge thing, they made a big deal of it for the year 2000 that they were doing this time capsule, and they really promoted it, and made us students a big part of it as well."
A tree has been planted in the school courtyard where the time capsule was previously buried.
W.J. Langlois is located at 3110 Rivard Avenue.