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On what will forever be a special date to Morgan Collum, she found herself talking about her younger cousin, Mollie Tibbetts, in the high school they both graduated from on Wednesday.
May 8 is the day Tibbetts was born. Wednesday would have been her 26th birthday. Tibbetts was abducted and killed in 2018, when she went out for a jog in Brooklyn.
Collum told KCCI, Tibbetts’ birthday is always a hard day. However, this year she was able to do something on the exact date in honor of her cousin: paying kindness forward using the Brooklyn Strong Mollie Tibbetts Memorial Fund scholarships.
“We’ve done this every year since Mollie passed,” Collum said. “It goes out — depending on the year — to usually about two or three students for sure.”
This year, two students received $700 each.
Collum says students are eligible if they plan to go to college to pursue a degree helping children like Tibbetts was doing.
“She always had a passion for helping people in general, but especially children,” Collum said. “When she was at the University of Iowa, she was studying psychology and wanted to go on to be a child psychologist.”
Collum and Tibbetts were close so each year without her younger cousin, especially on her birthday, hurts for Collum.
What helps, Collum says, is getting the chance to live like Tibbetts did.
“It’s something she would love: being kind; helping people nearby,” Collum said. “Especially young people who can go out there and make a difference just like Mollie was going to do and did, honestly.”
On what would have been Tibbetts’ 26th birthday, two students are being given a gift.
“One thing Mollie said is that we each possess different talents,” Collum said. “Just take the talents that you do have and go out into the world and share those talents with everyone and live out your dream.”
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