New vehicle to help teach students how to drive

Students at Victoria Park High School in Lethbridge received a nice gift. Members from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Lethbridge got together to award the school with a $15,000 donation by way of a new SUV to help out with a new driver training program. Staff from the school and members of the LDS church say the vehicle was much needed and will be used to help train students on the rules of the road.

“Can you remember when you were 14 or 16 and got started and how exciting that is and how that sort of gives you a hope and a vision for a better future and an exciting future? And so, as you can appreciate, young people who don’t have access to vehicles, who don’t have access to training or getting a driver’s license, that’s a real limitation,” says Daren Heyland, the director of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church in Lethbridge.

“One really quick success story. We had a student drive it a number of hours over a three week period. He had some experience behind the wheel, but he really wanted to work on a couple of things. So he went out, targeted those specific skills, took the vehicle into the registry, did the road test in the vehicle he was used to, passed, and got his driver’s license,” added Rod Scott, the vice-principal of Victoria Park High School.

The driver program will be run by community volunteers who can sign up through the school’s online platform called, Just Serve.