A 26-year-old California college student who comes from a broken and dysfunctional home took to Craigslist to seek a family with whom she could spend the holidays.
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Jackie Turner, a student at William Jessup University in Rocklin, Calif., who reportedly suffered a range of abuse as a child, wrote a heartrending ad in which she offered to pay $8 to a substitute mom and dad to help fill the void of not having a family, the Daily News reports.
"I am looking to rent a mom and dad who can give me attention and make me feel like the light of their life just for a couple of days because I really need it," Turner wrote in the post, which has since been deleted, the News says.
But an overwhelming number of responses led the student to celebrate the holidays by bringing together all of those who answered the ad.
Turner told News 10 that she has endured a life of hardship. After escaping from her biological parents and broken home, she encountered more problems.
"I was in gang life, on the streets, fighting, doing drugs, just making a mess of my life," she said during the interview.
She was arrested for grand theft and spent almost a year in prison. Since her release in 2010, Turner turned her life around, attending a Christian camp for troubled teens and attending William Jessup on a scholarship, where she has a 4.0 GPA, the News says.
Read more at the Daily News and News 10.
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