Toronto van attack: 5 years later, Anne Marie D’Amico’s legacy is powerful

Sitting in the Anne Marie D’Amico Square, a parkette at the corner of St Clair Avenue West and Northcliffe Boulevard, Anne Marie D’Amico‘s parents, brother and sister reflect on the past five years since their daughter and youngest sibling was killed in the Toronto Van attack.

The latest tribute to Anne Marie is just one of many memorial projects they’ve spearheaded in her honour.

“The Toronto District Catholic School Board just put a motion in to proclaim April 23, ‘Anne Marie D’Amico Day of Kindness and Love,'” says Anne Marie’s sister Frances, choking back tears as she talks about the event.

The first annual event began at TCDSB schools Friday, given that this year April 23 falls on a Sunday.

Frances D’Amico, Anne Marie’s sister and a teacher herself, came up with the idea of being kind to others on the anniversary of her sister’s death. In other words, do the opposite, she explains, of what happened on April 23, 2018. That’s when a Richmond Hill man deliberately drove a rental van down a busy sidewalk along Yonge Street from Finch Avenue to near Sheppard Avenue, killing 11 people and injuring 15 others.

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Frances hopes that other GTA school boards see what’s being done in the TCDSB, follow suit, also proclaiming April 23 to be an “Anne Marie D’Amico Day of Kindness.”

Since that terrible day in 2018, the family has worked tirelessly to honour Anne Marie and forget the offender, asking the media and others to never say his name.

“We don’t need to inspire negative and horrible things,” explained Nick D’Amico. “We need to inspire good things. So it’s not about what someone did. It’s about what the victims represented and what we can do in their name going forward and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

The family started a charitable organization called the Anne Marie D’Amico Foundation in December 2018 to support humanitarian causes that embody Anne Marie’s spirit and effect positive change.

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The Foundation has raised $800,000 for the North York Women’s Shelter through a charity concert held for two years called “The Turtle Project,” and more recently by starting a high tea in Anne Marie’s honour.

“She loved high teas, and if you see pictures of her dressed up, she went Value Village, as she called it, and made it look spectacular. So I said, I need a high tea for Anne Marie, so we did it last year for her 35th birthday,” explained Anne Marie’s mother, Carmela D’Amico.

The second annual High Tea with Anne Marie will be held on June 4.

The family says the anniversary of Anne Marie’s death will never get easier, but vow to continue to let her memory guide them in their philanthropy.

“She’s not here walking around, but she’s here with us, and she’s someone that we look to, who guides us in how we do things,” Nick said. “The foundation’s a perfect example, trying to spread goodwill in her name and trying to make sure we can make women and children live free of violence.”