Memorial Services Planned for 3 Abandoned Infants : Response: Organizers who believe they needed ‘to do something’ will honor the dead babies in ceremonies Sunday.

Seeking to instill hope, a group of parents has organized memorial services for the three dead babies who were discovered in Orange County earlier this month.

“I think a lot of us have a need to do something,” said Linda Johnson, 58, a Newport Beach grandmother of four who helped organize the services.

Two services will be conducted simultaneously at 6 p.m. Sunday at the Huntington Beach Pier and at 21st Street near the Newport Beach Pier. The public is invited.

On March 11, the body of a newborn girl was found washed ashore in Newport Beach. The next day, a second newborn girl was discovered at Sunset Beach. Two days after that, the body of a third infant, a boy, was found inside a box in the parking lot of a San Clemente apartment complex.

Police and sheriff’s investigations are pending.

After the third incident, about a dozen parents formed the Committee to Remember the Babies and began organizing the services, Johnson said, adding that many organizers believe the abandoned babies symbolize how society trivializes life.

“It’s so unspeakable,” Johnson said. “When this happens, it behooves us all to take time and reflect.”

Johnson said she has been contacted by the woman who found the baby’s body in the surf at Newport Beach.

“She called me in tears,” Johnson said. “She described how she kept trying to grab her but (the body) was rolling back and forth in the surf. She described it as a ‘perfect little girl, with 10 little fingers and 10 little toes.’ “The services are a memorial, but we’re also trying to encourage people to pray for families . . . just to give hope,” Johnson said. “Babies are so precious.”

The causes of deaths for the babies remain unknown, said Cullen Ellingburgh, the Orange County supervising deputy coroner. All three are unidentified and will be kept at the coroner’s office until the cause of death is determined.

Although unidentified bodies are cremated and their ashes strewn at sea at county expense, Ellingburgh said the babies probably will be buried.

“There’s been so much interest expressed by so many different groups that they will most likely be buried,” he said.