CREDIT: STEPHANIE LAI
Mary Rodrigues shows attendees the storybook one of her sons wrote about Alex's death.

On Thanksgiving day six years ago, Mary Rodrigues and her family were driving home from a restaurant when a white pickup truck drove through a red light and T-boned her vehicle.

Rodrigues, her husband and two of their children made it out. Four-month-old Alex didn’t.

The driver of the white pickup truck was impaired.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving kicked off its Project Red Ribbon campaign on November 7 at the Covent Garden Market, with the goal of creating awareness about impaired driving and victims of accidents related to impaired driving.

MADD volunteers will be distributing red ribbons during the holiday season to remind people to driver sober and honour victims of impaired-driving accidents.

“We see the devastation first hand,” said Chief of Police of London Police Services Bradley Duncan at the event. “Not only do we see what’s happened at the scene – often times tragic consequences in terms of fatalities – but then we have to take it one step further and we have to go to the homes of the families, and we have to tell them that a loved one will not be returning to that home.”

Impaired driving is 100 per cent preventable, he said.

“Just don’t get behind the wheel having consumed any amount of alcohol.”

Duncan says car accident fatalities are higher in the age group 16 to 25. In 55 per cent of fatality cases in that age group, alcohol or drugs played a factor.

The event also featured other prominent local figures, such as London-Fanshawe MP Irene Mathyssen and London North Centre MP Susan Truppe.

“For me, the red ribbons symbolizes all the victims who cannot speak, because they continuously struggle with their injuries or are consumed with grieve over the lost of a loved one,” Rodrigues said at the event.

People interested in making a donation to MADD can text MADD to 45678 to donate $5.