Gaining momentum with every step, Kim Thomas’ Empty Shoe Campaign has had to be relocated.
The anti-impaired driving event is now set to run June 14 at Mitford pond; it was originally supposed to take place on the steps outside the Calgary Court House.
Shoes have been arriving in Cochrane from as near as Canmore and Calgary, to as far as the U.S., said Thomas. There’s even a truckload of empty shoes set to arrive from Saskatchewan.
Thomas estimated she’s collected more than 2,000 empty shoes at this point of the campaign. She set out to gather 1,875 — a figure representative of the number of lives ended annually by drunk driving.
The campaign, part of Thomas’ work with Families for Justice, hopes to illustrate the need for stricter penalties for impaired drivers. The event is set to run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“All this support, it just goes to show there are a lot of people who are wanting change,” said Thomas, whose son Brandon was killed by an impaired driver in December 2012.
On May 12, Ryan Jordan Gibson was sentenced to two years, eight months behind bars for the collision that took Brandon’s life. Back in January, the Calgary man pleaded guilty to driving over .08 causing death and driving over .08 causing bodily harm.
Gibson is appealing the sentence.
