Woman Who Gives Abandoned Newborns a Decent Burial Wins $27 Million Jackpot

Seattle Times ^

[fo0hzy]

I searched FR for this and couldn't find anything... apologies in advance if the story has been posted already. The following is an excerpt.

Angel of abandoned babies wins lottery
LOS ANGELES —

All too often, the ring of Debi Faris-Cifelli's cellphone means there is another abandoned newborn at the morgue, another forsaken child for her to name and bury in a shoebox-size coffin under a white cross in the California desert.

Last week, though, Faris-Cifelli — who has had to rely on donations, grants and fund-raisers to give babies a decent burial — got a very different call.

She had won the California lottery.

The jackpot: $27 million.

"Maybe it's the children saying, 'Thank you' for taking care of them when nobody else would," said Faris-Cifelli, who lives in the desert town of Yucaipa east of Los Angeles. "It's a gift and one for which we feel an awesome responsibility."

The money could not come at a better time for Faris-Cifelli and the tiny Garden of Angels cemetery she founded in nearby Calimesa, where she has buried dozens of tiny children whose mothers hadn't heard — or didn't care — about California's safe-haven law.

Props to my mom for pointing this story out to me. I love it when truly deserving people wins large sums of cash.

This is Debi Faris-Cifelli's website.

[Saundra Duffy]

God works in mysterious way, His wonders to perform!

What a wonderful, sweet, generous, mighty fine Christian woman you are.

[potlatch]

Finally, someone who deserved a reward got one!

[Southack]