Mulwala mother Vicki Richardson made a surprise generous donation of $10,000 on behalf of the Don’t-text-and-drive foundation to the Cool Heads driver safety program at a seminar in Rutherglen recently.
Ms Richardson and her family opened the foundation shortly after her daughter’s death eight years ago.
Brooke was tragically killed when her car left the road and slammed head-on into a tree on December 4, 2012. The 20-year-old hairdresser was only 10 minutes away from her workplace in Cobram. Her phone showed she had been texting a client about an appointment, moments before the crash.
Since her death, the foundation has worked tirelessly to warn other road users the fatal consequences of texting and driving.
The recent seminar held in late April was attended by 120 students from Corowa and Rutherglen High Schools.
Ms Richardson was one of three guest speakers educating drivers about safety behind the wheel.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that mobile phones are bad and that you’re all obsessed with them. You hear that enough already,” Ms Richardson said.
“Mobile phones provide us with the flexibility to interact with others whenever we want, but we need to look at the issues created when we use phones in the wrong places. We need to learn from Brooke’s mistake.”
As Ms Richardson wrapped up her talk, she made a surprise announcement to the Cool Heads committee about her generous donation.
“Now that governments have made it illegal to use mobile phones while driving and it is a chargeable offence in all states, as a foundation we decided we don’t need to be a financial charity anymore. Today I would like to donate $10,000 to the Cool Heads program,” she said.
After a rapturous round of applause, Sergeant Brian Curran graciously accepted the cheque.
“I would like to give a huge thank you to Vicki and the foundation. The money will be put to good use to get the message out to young people in local community and region,” Sgt Curran said.
With drivers between the ages of 16 to 25 at the highest risk of being killed or seriously injured on the road, the Cool Heads program was launched in 2008 to help young people make important decisions about their attitude to driving.