Many gathered at City Hall in Red Deer this afternoon to bring awareness to workplace safety.

April 28 marks the Day of Mourning across the entire country, remembering those injured disabled or have lost their lives to work-related incidents.

Chris Banbury remembers when tragedy struck in his family.

“My father was impacted by workplace tragedy when he was 54 years old, 11 years ago," said Banbury.

“It’s important for me and my family to come. I’ve got five kids and only one of them had the opportunity to meet my father so this is our way of remembering my father, my mom’s husband and our children’s grandfather.”

Each year Banbury volunteers at the ceremony, something he feels is important for his family and the community.

“Every year it grows, every year our family becomes more involved, every year we get to disseminate the meaning and the importance to members in the community and influence a proactive change in safety so things like this don’t happen.”

144 Alberta lives were lost last year, but local chapter chair of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering Dan Trottier said progress is being made.

“It is dropping and we in the safety world we have target zero.”

“We don’t want to hurt anybody, we don’t want anybody to lose their life at work and we will continue to work towards zero as best we can.”

The Parkland Regional Safety Committee is also raising funds to improve the fallen worker memorial at Bower ponds which they hope to start construction by 2018.