LOS ANGELES – The family of a Maine woman who founded an organization that helps impoverished children in Guatemala is grateful for the attention brought to her life’s work thanks to an Oscar nomination.

Safe Passage founder Hanley Denning, who died in January at age 36 in a car crash in Guatemala, was interviewed several times for the 38-minute film “Recycled Life,” a documentary about people who subsist at the Guatemala City dump.

“Recycled Life” was one of four nominated for an Academy Award in the short-documentary category.

Denning, a Bowdoin College graduate, started Safe Passage in 1999 with about 40 children with money she got from selling her computer and car.

Her goal was to send those children to school so they could avoid a life of scavenging in the Guatemala City dump. The nonprofit organization now helps about 500 children and has an annual budget of $1.6 million.

Denning’s father, Mike, and her brother, Jordan, flew to Los Angeles to accompany director Leslie Iwerks and producer Mike Glad to the Oscars ceremony.

Denning’s brother said he’s happy about the Oscar nomination because it gets the story of Safe Passage to a larger audience. “We’re really grateful and humbled by it,” Jordan Denning, a lawyer from New York, said before traveling to Los Angeles.