Mollie Tibbetts would have turned 21 Wednesday (5/9).  You’ll remember she was murdered last July in her hometown of Brooklyn.  On Wednesday, Mollie’s friends and family turned out in Brooklyn to remember her and raise awareness of several worthy causes.  Mollie’s cousin, Morgan Collum, talks about one cause: renovating the Brooklyn Opera House.

“They’re trying to encourage everyone to donate $21 in order to help restore our opera house.  It’s been in our community for many, many years, since way before I was born.  And because of Mollie’s love for the arts; she was very involved in speech and choir, things of that nature, plays.  My Aunt Laura, who’s Mollie’s Mom, thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity to pay legacy to Mollie by having people donate their money to help restore this building.”

You can make a donation for the Brooklyn Opera House at www.givetoIowa. org/Mollie. There’s also an effort to find missing people called Mollie’s Movement.  There are t-shirts and other items on sale to fund this.  There’s more information at Mollie’sMovement.com.  Also on Wednesday, several restaurants in Brooklyn, Grinnell and Iowa City donated ten percent of the day’s proceeds to the University of Iowa Hospital’s children’s psychiatric unit.  Collum says Mollie wanted to be a child psychiatrist.