Australian woman leaves $4.3 million estate to Vinnies

Lily Fardell, from Newcastle, died earlier this year and her final wishes were carried out on Friday.

Among them was the wish that her home and its contents, valued at $4.3 million, be handed over to the St. Vincent de Paul Society so it could better care for the area’s homeless.

‘It was an extraordinary bequest,’ solicitor Nick Dan told the Sydney Morning Herald.

‘It’s certainly the biggest single donation I’ve ever seen as others tend to divide it up among various charities.’

The house and its contents were valued at $4.3 million. Peter Fishlock, the president of the charity’s Vinnies’ Maitland-Newcastle division, said the money would go directly to providing shelter for homeless children and their families.

Mrs Fardell, who moved with her husband Noel to the house in 1958, was known for her generosity and the tea parties she would hold for friends in the neighbourhood.

At the auction of the house’s contents in September, hundreds of people who knew Mrs Fardell bid for items in an effort to take home a small memento of a remarkable woman.

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