Lizzy Walker didn’t know the woman she met on a cold October night at the Red Deer Greyhound bus station would change her life.
What she did know, was this woman, Myra Dionne, was about to do something she would have regretted.
It was 9 p.m. and Dionne was trying to get to Rocky Mountain House to go to the women’s shelter there. There were no buses and Dionne was about to start hitchhiking out.
Walker told Dionne, who she had never met before, to get in her car.
“I’m not an impulsive woman, but there’s no way I would have left her at the bus station,” said Walker. “She needed love that night, she needed someone around her.”
The next morning, Dionne woke up early, made her bed, and prepared breakfast.
They went to the Central Alberta Women’s Shelter where Dionne spent a month before setting out on her own, starting with an apartment in Calgary.
Years later, Dionne and Walker shared their story as Walker was one of four women the Soroptimist International of Central Alberta recognized at its International Women’s Day Awards luncheon Thursday at the Radisson in Red Deer.
Brynne Takhar, a Grade 11 student at H.J. Cody School in Sylvan Lake, won the Violet Richardson Award. The award is for girls aged 14 to 17.
Two Red Deer College students, and single mothers, Lindsey Riley and Frederique Ouellet, received the Live Your Dream Award, which is for women who are the financial heads in their families.
Walker received the Ruby Award and called it an honour.
The award is for women who make a difference in the lives of other women.
“It’s amazing and wonderful, especially because its the Soroptimists. I have so much dignity and respect for them,” she said. “And it’s on International Women’s Day, and that’s amazing, too.
“What I’ve enjoyed more than anything is being able to tell my story about Myra.”
Walker is a doula by trade, but also is a media manager.
She has also prepared food in her home and then taken it to the Kinsmen picnic area to give it away to homeless people.
mcrawford@reddeeradvocate.com
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