Friends make video for hang gliding accident victim

Friends of Lenami Godinez-Avila, a young woman who died in a tragic B.C. hang gliding accident in April 2012, have created a video in her memory. July 15, 2012. (CTV)

Friends of the hang glider killed in a tragic accident in April have made a video remembering her life as part of a campaign to raise money for a scholarship in her memory.

In the video, friends remember Lenami Godinez-Avila’s love for sustainability, and strive to make her dream of making it easier for international students like her to follow their dreams at Simon Fraser University.

“It was really emotional; it was tough for everyone to talk about Lenami, but our goal in making this was to honour her life, honour her legacy,” Louman-Gardiner told CTV News.

Godinez-Avila was from Mexico, but came to Canada to study at Simon Fraser University. The 27-year-old and her boyfriend Dave Barrie went hang gliding to celebrate their anniversary in April. The trip ended in tragedy when Godinez-Avila somehow detached from the hang glider and plunged to her death while Barrie watched.

Barrie was featured in the video, speaking publicly for the first time.

“She touched a lot of people,” Barrie says in the video. “She was really genuine and soft, just really kind.”

Barrie says her passion for sustainability made her curious about how to improve a city’s efficiency – even following garbage from her house to the landfill.

“She was so excited,” Barrie remembered. “This was a day of following a garbage truck and going to a landfill and that was a very good day.”

Another friend, Robin Hussen, said having a legacy for Lenami was important.

“I still feel like she could be away for just a couple weeks, she’s not actually gone,” friend Robin Hussen says in the video. “So it’s really hard to realize she’s not coming back.”

The friends have raised $30,000 so far in donations from around the world, Louman-Gardiner said, including from companies like Belkorp, Regional Recycling, the Product Care Association and Godinez-Avila’s former employer, B.C.’s Ministry of Environment.

With interest, that’s enough to provide a $1,200 permanent endowment for an international student who plans to study something with social benefit to the Mexican community or ecological sustainability and the environment.

Their goal is to raise $10,000 more to fund the cost of a class for an international student, which is $1,600 a year.

The idea for the scholarship was Lenami’s, Louman-Gardiner said.

“One of her dreams was to set up a fund so that it would make it just a little bit easier for international students to come and study in Vancouver,” Louman-Gardiner said.