Marcie Heggie wants to ensure teens like her get the chance to realize their dreams.
The Grade 11 student designed a rural taxi service for her home community of Leross, Sask., to keep drinking drivers off the road.
Heggie said many rural communities have been touched by lost lives due to drinking and driving.
“It’s a problem,” she said.
For her efforts in addressing safety or hunger issues in a community, the seven-year 4-H member received a $1,000 scholarship from the Farm Credit Canada
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4-H scholarship program in April.
She lives on a cattle and grain farm near Leross, attends school in Kelliher and looks to a possible future in engineering.
Heggie saw the rural taxi service as good for the whole region.
“You’re putting something back into the community and doing something that could help others in the end.”
Under her plan, those needing rides would be able to call an 800-number anytime between Friday night and early Sunday morning.
A dispatcher would link them up with volunteers staffing the eight cell phones distributed within a 100-kilometre area in the community. The program targets teens, but Heggie said others would not be refused rides.
Users pay a 40-cents-a-kilometre fee to cover the driver’s costs and program expenses, which would include $100 per month in telephone charges.
She estimated start-up fees for the services at $600.
Heggie is hoping to get a chance to put her plan into action. She is one of 10 provincial scholarship winners vying for the national prize of an additional $1,000 scholarship and $3,000 to implement the plan.
Other provincial scholarship winners in Western Canada include Gabrielle Alberni of St. Claude, Man., for a farm safety presentation for students, Alexa Gray of Claresholm, Alta., for creating a community garden plan and Brett Larsen of Wardner, B.C., for a wildlife and vehicle accident prevention program.
