December 17, 2004

A HUMAN BEING (via Mike Daley):

Woman Who Gives Abandoned Newborns a Decent Burial Wins $27 Million Jackpot (Gillian Flaccus, 12/07/04, Associated Press)

All too often, the ring of Debi Faris-Cifelli's cell phone 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," Faris-Cifelli said, bubbling with laughter. "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 her Garden of Angels, the tiny cemetery in the town of Calimesa where she has buried dozens of tiny children whose mothers didn't hear - or didn't care - about California's safe-haven law.

Under the 2001 law, parents have three days to abandon infants without fear of prosecution. California is one of 46 states with such a law.

Faris-Cifelli helped win passage of the law and has made it her life's work to spread the word that scared and confused parents should drop their newborns at firehouses and hospitals - not in trash cans and alleys.


Ever heard a windfall recipient say it imposed a responsibility before?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 17, 2004 9:03 AM
Comments

Christopher Hitchens needs to get on this case. Obviously this lady has a great scam going and needs to be exposed for what she really is. "Lottery money for scholarships", yeah sure.

Posted by: h-man at December 17, 2004 9:31 AM

Well, Peter Parker learned this lesson (but at a very high price).

Posted by: jim hamlen at December 17, 2004 10:39 AM

That really does sound like the hand of God reached out and choose her lottery balls. What a wonderful Christmas story.

Posted by: Ray Clutts at December 17, 2004 10:52 AM

It is people like this woman who make the world go around.

Posted by: Peter B at December 17, 2004 5:41 PM

And we are sure that Providence plays no part in our daily lives.

Peter. In the Talmud it says that the continued existence of the world depends upon the lives of 36 righteous men. Ms. Faris-Cifelli may be one of them.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at December 18, 2004 12:23 AM
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