A family in Washington state is following the journey of a loved one who died helping to serve orphans in Haiti.

Molly Hightower died in the Jan. 12 quake, in the place where she was first called to serve.

Hightower was working with the group "Friends of the Orphans " gathering shoes for disadvantaged children in Haiti. The mission was cut short when she was killed during the earthquake.

Now, her family is determined to honor her mission.

"She was full of trying to make people understand how wounded the world is and how desperately we have to band together to make it a better place," her father, Rick Frechette, said.

"Every child would approach Molly. Here are these children with special needs; it's amazing to see them, and they looked at you, you just saw that, you saw the same thing Molly saw, so that's pretty powerful," Molly's aunt Theresa Hightower said.

This is the first time her family has been to Haiti. They collected and delivered more than 180,000 shoes for the kids who Hightower believed needed them the most.