TORONTO -- The sister of a man killed in a crash involving a suspected impaired driver has launched a Grad/MADD t-shirt campaign for graduating students during the COVID-19 pandemic to raise money and send a message about the dangers of intoxicated behind the wheel.

Remembering Paul Brizzi

Carla Mawyin’s brother, Paul Brizzi, died on August 17, 2019. Police said the 39-year-old was driving on Highway 401 near Keele Street at around 4:30 p.m. when another vehicle came into contact with his car and caused it to hit the concrete barrier.

Mawyin told CTV News Toronto Sunday she always wanted to do something special to honour her brother. The pandemic intensified her feelings of loss.

“I was just missing Paul so so much and missing him these days,” Mawyin said. “It’s been tough on me.”

The T‑Shirt Idea

Mawyin’s 17-year-old daughter, Isabella, is graduating high school this year. After learning about a T-shirt campaign in Alberta raising money for a food bank, she decided to start a T-shirt fundraiser for MADD.

The T-shirts say ‘Senior Class of 2020. The one where they were quarantined,’ and include graphics of a graduation cap, a mask, and the MADD Canada logo. Images of toilet paper rolls make the zeros in 2020 on the T-shirt.

Why it matters

Mawyin said her brother was funny and always knew how to put things that went wrong into perspective. He was very close to his nieces and nephews and would have been proud to see Isabella graduate.

“Honestly, I love the idea, and I love the message behind it too,” Isabella said. “These T-shirts, they send out a message that even if we don’t get proper graduation, a formal prom, at least we have each other, and we are still graduating, going off to post-secondary. It’s an exciting moment.”

Fundraising and impact

Each T-shirt costs $25, and $5 from each sale goes to MADD Canada for its awareness programs and supporting families, Mawyin said.

“People ask me all the time, ‘did Paul have kids?’ I said, ‘yeah, he had five kids, my three kids and my brother’s two kids.’ He was like a fun dad to them,” she said.

“We’re not able to celebrate anything at all. All of our happy moments are lost because everything we did, we did with us,” Isabella said.

“I can’t let him die in vain. Paul was my baby brother. We were super close.”

“I want to make a lot of noise. I want this message to go far. It is not okay to drive impaired. Devastating families is not okay,” Mawyin said.