Members of Community Outreach Service’s Peer Support Group gave up their Friday afternoon to do their small part to keep people from drinking and driving, Nov. 14.
The group gathered to decorate bags with messages aimed at keeping people from drinking and driving. Avalanche Spirits will give them to customers during the holidays.
Katie Garton, Crimson Derbowka, Cailyn Sherlow and Gaby Guiganard—along with Teen Outreach Worker Anna DeClercq—spent about three hours sitting around a boardroom table, an array of brown paper bags and felt-tipped markers scattered before them.
As music blared from one of the students’ cell phones, the group joked with one another as they wrote messages and drew pictures on the bags.
“Think about making cookies with your children, you can’t do that if you’re dead,” was written on one bag. Another, featuring coloured hearts and keys, read: “People love you, don’t drink and drive.”
Along with the project, the students also heard a presentation from Jasper Victim Service’s Paul Schmidt, who led them in a discussion about their encounters with drunk drivers.
Constable Scott Kirychuk of the Jasper RCMP was also there, although he had to leave before many of the students arrived.
Kirychuk did say, however, that drinking and driving continues to be a problem in Jasper—and it may be getting even worse.
Kirychuk said the Jasper RCMP has arrested almost twice as many people for driving under the influence this year as they did in 2013.
Kirychuk was baffled by this, and pointed out that Jasper is such a small place, there’s really no excuse to get in a car and drive home.
“What a silly place for [drinking and driving] not to be on the decline,” he said. “There’s always a way to get home, especially here in Jasper.”
The teens of the Peer Support Group shared Kirychuk’s sentiment. Most have already had experiences with drinking and driving—whether it’s being in a car with a friend who has had one too many, or having to refuse a ride because they didn’t feel safe.
DeClercq pointed out that a lot of young people in Jasper might encounter similar circumstances when they are babysitting, when parents can come home after a few too many drinks and offer them a ride home.
As she coloured out a message onto one of the bags, Derbowka voiced her thoughts.
“Since we’re such a small community, when someone dies we all know them,” she said.
Garton, also working diligently, said she was taking part in the project because “we could be in this predicament one day.”
She had a message for people who drive drunk: “you’re not the only one who can die from drunk driving,” she said.
After all the bags were adorned with messages, the group sent them to Avalanche Spirits, which will package its products in them during the holiday season. DeClercq said if even one person thinks twice about drinking and driving after seeing the messages, their efforts will be worth it.
Trevor Nichols
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