Gabby Petito’s family members honor her memory with the launch of a new foundation to help locate missing people and support organizations that come to the aid of victims of domestic violence.

“We want to turn our personal tragedy into a positive event,” reads the Gabby Petito Foundation website. “We hope that Gabby’s foundation will bring these important issues to the forefront of public attention for the benefit of all of our communities.”

Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, spoke to the local Tampa news station WFLA about the charity effort.

“We are still in mourning and it will be a process for a long time,” she said. “I think starting the foundation is one way to grieve and get through it. Some mornings I wake up, I want to save the world and I know I can’t do it, but I’ll die trying. ‘is Gabby’s legacy. “

Schmidt’s personal goal is to help prevent Petito’s situation from happening to someone else. She noted that there were currently only amber alerts for missing children and money alerts for “senior at risk”.

“What about those people who are in between?” Schmidt asked. “If a family member knows he’s missing, there has to be some sort of warning system so people can start looking immediately.”

Petito’s younger brother TJ Schmidt has created a new TikTok account to reach out to the thousands of people who care about his sister’s life and seek justice for her.

The Gabby Petito Foundation has already set up two college scholarships that will benefit students from two high schools in his hometown. The website also has many resources on domestic violence and sells bracelets to benefit the foundation.

The stars we lost in 2021