SASKATOON — A Saskatchewan woman who invited people to send photographs of sunsets to pay tribute to a family of four who died in a car crash this year is staggered by the response.
Andrea Lawrence came up with the idea of a tribute to Jordan Van De Vorst, his wife and two young children because the Saskatoon man was an avid photographer who posted his images online.
She was inspired by a Facebook post Van De Vorst made before his death about having as many people as possible take a picture of a sunset.
Lawrence turned to Facebook and local media, inviting people to take pictures of sunsets over the weekend.
She says people who knew Van De Vorst helped spread the word and there was a snowball effect. She says she expected a few dozen responses but ended up with nearly 500, including submissions from Germany, the Netherlands and Barbados.
Lawrence says she is now trying to figure out the best way to present the flood of images on a Facebook tribute page.
"It's so cool to see all these sunsets from everywhere being posted," she said in a phone interview Sunday.
"I plan to.... hopefully put them all together into a little time lapse movie and just have everybody's image and their credits on there and where they were from and where they were taken."
The response was so "awesome" Lawrence is thinking of making it an annual event.
Media reports say Van De Vorst, 34, his wife Chandra, 33 and two children Kamryn 5, and Miguire, 2, died in early January in a two vehicle accident near Saskatoon.