Charity Tops List of Lotto Winner

For eight years, Debi Cifelli of Yucaipa has made sure that the abandoned, unidentified bodies of infants throughout Southern California have received proper burials at the Garden of Angels cemetery in Calimesa.

So it was no surprise that when she and her husband learned they had won Wednesday’s $27-million California Lottery jackpot, those children were first on Cifelli’s mind.

“We’re going to start a foundation that gives scholarships in honor of every baby buried in the Garden of Angels,” Cifelli said Monday.

“My husband and I kept saying over and over to each other that we are so rich because we have each other and because we have our families -- there’s nothing that we need....

“We want to be able to touch the lives of people for generations to come.”

Cifelli and her husband, Steve, a school guidance counselor, have bought lottery tickets twice in the last two years. The second time was Nov. 30, when the jackpot hit $27 million, leading the Cifellis to buy $20 worth of tickets at Party Pantry in Yucaipa.

The winning numbers were announced Wednesday, but the Cifellis were in Palm Springs for a conference and didn’t check their tickets until they got home Friday afternoon.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” Debi Cifelli said.

She told her husband, “Honey, if you’re kidding, you’re in such big trouble.”

The couple raced to the lottery office in Riverside, arriving just 10 minutes before the office closed for the weekend. The couple opted for a single lump payment, so after taxes they will receive between $9 million and $10 million, Cifelli said.

Some money will be put away for the family, and Cifelli said she and her husband may buy a vacation home or take a trip.

But their priority is to create a fund to award 140 scholarships, two for each of the 70 babies buried in the Garden of Angels area of Desert Lawn Cemetery.

Cifelli started Garden of Angels in 1996 after hearing a television news report about a baby stuffed in a bag and dumped onto a Los Angeles freeway.

While she made plans for a burial, two more abandoned children turned up, alerting her to the scope of the problem.

Since then, Cifelli has raised money to buy scores of burial plots for abandoned children and has pushed for creation of the “safe haven” state laws that allow babies up to 3 days old to be left at hospitals and fire stations without penalty. She does outreach at schools to educate teenagers about their options.