Ramona Cafe Raising Funds for Family of Crash Victim Marley Pineda, 20

Ramona Cafe is offering 30 percent of its sales Thursday to the family of Marley Pineda of Ramona, who died Friday, according to friends. It was the third tragic death involving young people here since June.

Sonja Steiner, owner of Ramona Cafe, said Pineda, 20, was killed last week on state Route 78 near Cloverdale Road after overcorrecting when trying to avoid hitting a deer.

Steiner said her car hit oncoming traffic and the impact killed her.

“She was getting married, I guess, in December,” Channel 10 News quoted friend Michelle Vargas as saying.

Pineda’s father Eliomar told 10News in Spanish: “Almost the whole town knew her. She had a lot of friends.”

Pineda was the oldest of four children and had just applied to cosmetology school in San Diego, the station said.

San Diego police Officer Dino Delimitros had a slightly different account of the accident, telling Channel 6 News that her 1999 Ford Mustang struck a deer on San Pasqual Road and veered into oncoming traffic, where it was broadsided by a SUV.

Steiner said Pineda worked at her café for a few months and also had a job for years as a bookkeeper at her parents’ egg ranch, Swiss Mountain View Egg Farm.

Guests can come into the cafe for breakfast and lunch, and 30 percent of the sales during those meals will go to the family for funeral costs.

Denise Lepez, a Spanish teacher at Ramona High School, has been keeping in touch with family and friends of Pineda. She told Patch that the family held a two-day wake, customary in Hispanic culture, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

No memorial service will be held for Pineda, who was in the graduating class of 2011 at Ramona High, but the school will have a moment of silence for the alum at Friday night’s homecoming game, according to Lepez.

Pineda’s death is the third tragedy involving young people to hit Ramona in recent months—after former Bulldog football and track star   died of injuries in June in a Pamo Road motorcycle crash, and Olive Peirce Middle School student , died at home in mid-September.