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Vanessa Pean remembered

The Vanessa Pean Foundation, a charity organization dedicated to funding education for high school students in Haiti, has started a new Web site, Vanessa Pean Foundation, to collect donations.

The foundation was started in 2005 in honor of Potomac School student and Great Falls resident Vanessa Pean, 16, who was killed in a car accident in McLean - Virginia. Monique Pean, Vanessa's older sister, is the foundation's executive officer.

"Haiti is the most impoverished country in the western hemisphere. They don't really have a public education system that works," Monique Pean said.

Vanessa and Monique's father was born in Haiti and Vanessa had become interested in charity work there just prior to her death.

So far, the Vanessa Pean Foundation has raised almost $40,000 and given nine students scholarships through high school. According to Monique, this year the foundation will double that number.

The new Web site explains the foundation's mission and includes a schedule of upcoming foundation events, including a soccer tournament planned for this fall.

"We've really received an outpouring of support from the community. We're expecting a great response with the tournament," Monique Pean said.

Gail Pean, Vanessa's mother, hopes the Web site will help preserve her daughter's memory.

"People can visit it and donate, they can volunteer, they can send us pictures of Vanessa," she said.