Man bequeaths funds to repay public assistance

In what may be a county first, an Inglewood native has bequeathed $10,000 to repay the public assistance his immigrant mother received while raising 11 children during the Great Depression, Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said Tuesday.

Joseph Vilarino, 80, died in June and designated that the money aid single mothers and needy Inglewood residents.

"Without the county of Los Angeles' support of our grandmother, our father and his siblings, we may not have been in the position we are today to offer you this gift," Vilarino's son Ron wrote in a letter to Burke.