Sask. family keeps finding ways to fight drunk driving

Five years after the tragic loss of their teenage son, a Saskatoon family continues to find ways to keep up the fight against drunk driving.

Bonny Stevenson and her husband Craig run a charitable trust in the name of their son Quinn, who was 17 when he was killed in August 2013 by an impaired driver.

The Stevensons have worked with friends and other family members over the years to run various events in Quinn’s name, including a popular annual hockey day.

This summer, Stevenson said she’s found yet another way to take on impaired driving: Working with volunteers to offer safe rides home from weddings.

She said it started with a friend planning a daughter’s wedding.

“As with many things with Quinn’s trust, they’re never our ideas. It seems people come to us with these ideas and we figure out a way to make it happen and work with them, ” she told guest host Drew Remenda during an interview Tuesday on the Brent Loucks Show.

With the wedding being held just outside Saskatoon, Stevenson said she gathered a group of around a dozen volunteer drivers — many of them Quinn’s childhood friends.

The bride’s family made a donation to the trust and guests were encouraged to tip their driver, with those proceeds also donated.

Stevenson said they had a great time and raised over $2,000.

“It was a fundraiser. But, you’re always kind of giving back. I think with those things, we keep Quinn’s name in the forefront. We always want people to know how Quinn was killed.”

She said they’ve since done one more wedding and have been approached to do more. But she explained she doesn’t plan to make it a full-time gig.

“There’s just lots of stuff always going on. Even now, we have Quinn’s golf tournament coming up,” she said.

Stevenson said running the trust has helped her and her husband cope with the grief of losing their son.

“Any of the events we do, or anything we give money to in Quinn’s name, we try to keep his spirit in that,” she said.