Police officers, sheriffs, school crossing guards, ambulance drivers, Scout groups and civilians, almost one hundred in all, were in attendance as two tiny caskets were carried into St. Rose of Lima Church in Massapequa Feb. 5 to the sound of bagpipes. The two babies were victims of infanticide by mothers who abandoned them shortly after giving birth.

The first baby was found in October 2004 in a suitcase under a bed in an Elmont home. The 18-year-old mother was arrested and is awaiting trial on second-degree murder charges.

The second baby, a full-term white male, was found Dec. 27, 2004 at about 8 a.m. by employees of a Copiague recycling company, according to Detective Sargent Vincent Posillico of the Suffolk County Police Department. As employees of Eff-N-Bee unloaded a truck full of used clothing that had been anonymously donated through a variety of used clothing bins, they discovered the baby wrapped in cloth and placed in a shopping bag.

Since then, further investigation has revealed that the clothing bin where the infant was placed might have come from the Massapequa area. Police are asking anyone with information about a white or Hispanic female who would have been due to give birth in December and have not since seen her and/or her baby to call 1-800-TIPS or 852-6392. The woman may have told people that she gave the baby up for adoption.

The Children of Hope Foundation, a non-profit Long Island-based organization, provided funeral services for the two children who they named Baby Allison Allen Hope and Baby Nicholas Hope. After Mass was said by Msgr. Daniel Hurley, the Nassau County Police Highway Patrol escorted the two hearses to Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury, where the two children were laid to rest in the Island of Hope, an area reserved for babies.

The Children of Hope Foundation was founded in 1998 by members of the Ambulance Medical Technicians of the Nassau County Police Department after a series of cases of infanticide in Nassau County. Their goals are to help save the lives of abandoned infants, to act as a Safe Haven and accept newborns from parents or guardians who wish to relinquish custody, and to refer pre-and postpartum women to the appropriate government and social services agencies when necessary.

The organization also makes arrangements for the dignified burials of abandoned and unclaimed infants or children, alone or in conjunction with appropriate government agencies or other charitable organizations.

Tim Jaccard of the Foundation referred to the two babies as heroes. "Since the publicity of Nicholas and Allison, a number of birth mothers have come forth and agreed to surrender their babies to the Foundation, rather than abandon them." The Foundation's Crisis Hotline is 877-796-HOPE.