EDMONTON — Alberta students are continuing an annual campaign in the hopes their messages will stop someone from getting behind the wheel impaired.
For the fourth year in a row, Students Against Drinking and Driving partnered with the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission for a campaign where students from kindergarten to Grade 12 write a personal message about the dangers of impaired driving on a paper liquor bag.
The bags are then distributed to liquor stores before Christmas.
“Hopefully these bags will get people to not drink and drive,” said 11-year-old Zack Heinbuch. Heinbuch is a Grade 6 student at École Broxton Park School in Spruce Grove. “Your reflexes can slow down and you can cause a big crash.
“Your life could be lost – or others’.”
Students in Heinbuch’s class learned about the impact of impaired driving on Tuesday, then spent part of Wednesday drawing their personal messages on liquor bags.
“I felt sad for those people that died. I really didn’t like it,” said student Grayson Schmidt. “I think people should just stop drinking and driving.”
More than 60,000 liquor bags have been distributed to schools around the province, which is twice as many as last year. There’s no cost to the schools or students.
“Not only are we impacting the adults out there now, but we are planting seeds in the children here,” Eric Baich from the AGLC said.
“Hopefully they’ll be the next generation that will be making better choices.”
At the end of the campaign, one design will be picked and re-printed on one-million liquor bags which will be distributed in the spring.
“When you get a bag at a checkout that has a personalized message from a student in your community, you stop and read it. There’s no doubt about it,” Arthur Lee from S.A.D.D. said.
According to Alberta Transportation, 444 people died and 6,649 were injured in alcohol-related collisions between 2009 and 2013.
Comments