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Teacher from Bucks killed in Dominican Republic crash

A Philadelphia-area woman teaching in the Dominican Republic has died in a car accident.

The Associated Press reports that 24-year-old Megan Garven died in the Tuesday crash after the car she was traveling in struck another vehicle in Santiago.

Garven had been a third-grade teacher at Santiago Christian School.

A fellow teacher, who was from Chicago, and a student who both were in the same vehicle as Garven were also injured in the crash. The driver of the other car was also hurt.

The school says that a memorial for Garven will be held Friday.

Garven had been a teacher there since August 2011, according to her LinkedIn profile. She also was a student-teacher at the school while she attended college.

On her blog, Garven wrote why she liked teaching third grade:

"I enjoy third grade because I have lots of energy, I am super curious, I love to do hands on things, and I love to talk about how God is doing awesome things in my life and my students."

She graduated in 2011 from Cairn University in Langhorne, where she studied elementary and special education. She was one of the recipients of the college's alumni recognition award that year.

In the university's announcement of the award, her adviser said Garven had a "heart for missions" and had served on mission teams in New Orleans, New Mexico, Peru, Mexico and Brazil.

Garven had a "commitment to lifelong learning, to education children and to differentiated instruction," adviser Ann Rivera said in the announcement.

"She loved Jesus," an uncle, Mike Lukens, told NBC Philadelphia. "That's why she was there. She gave up working here in the states and probably making a whole lot more money to go live there and give her life to those kids."

Garven was the oldest of four children, her blog says. Her Facebook profile says she graduated from Council Rock High School North in Bucks County in 2007.

She was a member of the soccer and softball teams at Cairn.

The university's alumni association said in a post on its Facebook page that Garven "was a hope-filled inspiration to many on campus and, likewise, to her students at Santiago Christian School."