DE SOTO, Iowa — After Mollie Quick, 20, unexpectedly passed away in a car crash, her family launched a campaign to address overcrowding at the AHeinz57 Pet Rescue.
Mother's Day weekend, Mollie, who was a hospital corpsman E-3, was on the way home to Waukee from her navy base in Twentynine Palms, CA.
On May 12 she crashed into a semi that was pulled off the road near Kearney, NE.
“She started hydroplaning, her car started spinning and she collided into a semi,” Mollie’s mother Molly Quick said. “It was head on from the driver's side door to the back of the semi.”
Mollie was a huge animal lover and spent about five years volunteering in the puppy patrol area at AHeinz57.
“It’s a no kill shelter, so a lot of them have been abused or abandoned,” Molly said. “Mollie really had a soft spot for those animals in particular.”
AHeinz57 Executive Director Amy Heinz said she’s running out of room in the designated area for puppies and their mothers, forcing her to put them in other areas.
“The room we’re in now is our all purpose room,” Heinz said. “We currently have to turn this room into an extension of puppy patrol for the large litters.”
Mollie's family is looking to raise $50,000 to expand the puppy patrol area by 16 feet.
“If Mollie was alive and you could ask her if you passed away, ‘how would you want your legacy to live on?’ It would definitely have something to do with animals,” Molly said. “If she can have her name associated with AHeinz she would want nothing more.”
If the Quick family reaches their fundraising goal, AHeinz57 will no longer have to put the puppies in unconventional places.
“Mollie was so young when we lost her, so this is a way to keep her light shining with new life,” Heinz said.
Mollie had aspirations to help others by becoming a nurse, and was taking nursing classes while serving in the navy before she passed.
The goal is to start construction on the project before winter, and the plan is to eventually rename the puppy patrol area in honor of Mollie.
Donations can be made on the AHeinz57 website.