Volunteers spent a Sunday outside a west Mobile restaurant washing cars and passing out flyers, all to keep attention fixed on a missing Mobile mother whose disappearance had stretched on for weeks.
The fundraiser ran through the day outside Hurricane Grill and Wings, where organizers set up the car wash as both a money-raiser for Danniella Vian’s family and a reminder that she was still missing. Donations from the car wash alone reached $2,356.27 by Sunday evening, before the restaurant added a share of its dinner sales from a benefit held later that night.
‘Keep Her Alive in Your Conversation’
Family members said the goal was as much about awareness as it was about funds. Julie Thomas, Vian’s mother-in-law, urged everyone who stopped by to learn her face and keep talking about her case.
“Know who she is, know her face, share her face and her information, anyone you talk to, talk about her, keep her alive in your conversation so that if someone sees her somewhere they’ll know and they can let us know,” Thomas said.
Vian, 25, was last seen in mid-July 2018 after buying her first car that evening. Her family filed a missing persons report after she failed to come home to her young daughter, and volunteers have since plastered billboards and handed out flyers across the area. Anyone with information is asked to contact Mobile police.