Two Morrin School students are making a difference in their community by helping to change attitudes about drinking and driving.
The Mail reported in its April 17 edition that Kyle Montgomery and Brittany Cawiezel had been selected to serve as youth ambassadors representing Alberta for a workshop presented by Parachute Canada on a new teen driver safety project. They also attended the Youth Against Impaired Driving Conference. These were in Oakville Ontario.
From these experiences, they came home with the tools needed to make their community safer.
The two are members of the Morrin School SADD group, and now are founders of Project Gearshift in Alberta. Project Gearshift grew out of the teen driver safety workshop.
“We sort of created it. There are two Alberta ambassadors, Brittany and myself,” said Kyle. “There are two from Ontario and two from New Brunswick.”
“We met in Ontario and created the group,” said Brittany.
Last week the group had its inaugural Community Leader Meeting to begin planning how it would address problems of drinking and driving.
“Kyle and I were able to pick which issues we wanted to bring back to our community, so we picked drinking and driving,” said Brittany. “We wanted to make a difference.”
On Tuesday, September 24 their meeting was well attended and include representatives from the RCMP, Morrin School, Starland County Alberta Transportation, Commercial Vehicle Enforcement, Alberta Health services and EMS.
“We wanted to make it community based, and we are getting signs for the community called “RID” Report Impaired Drivers,” said Brittany. “We have a big one we are putting out at the school.”
The small signs will be mounted to existing traffic signs for high visibility.
Brittany said that there is power when the message comes from younger people. Both adults and youth take notice.
Morrin School students Kyle Montgomery, left, and Brittany Cawiezel are heading up Project Gearshift to spread awareness of impaired driving in the community.
