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From BostonHerald.com:
The Southbridge family that's holding a public competition to find a suitable suitor for a daughter, has a history of financial and relationship problems.
Donna Wood and her family had caught the imagination of the public recently when she advertised for a man to marry her daughter, Kimberly Devlin, 22, and then interviewed candidates on her front lawn, setting off a media frenzy.
The attention also caught the eye of Hollywood and captured a free trip to California for the family to appear on Sharon Osbourne's new show next month when Devlin's beau will be chosen on air from two finalists.
But the family stopped giving interviews after the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported yesterday that the family is receiving welfare payments.
According to sources familiar with the family, Kimberly, who works as a part-time nanny and is the single mother of 4-year-old Kara, is collecting $518 a month in Transitional Aid for Families with Dependent Children and $211 a month in food stamps.
Wood, 44, is collecting $428 a month in TAFDC for her 20-month-old granddaughter who was left in Wood's care by Devlin's older sister.
Beth Lavine of Oxford, Devlin's best friend, said the family's financial straits have nothing to do with Wood's matchmaking.
Sources said the family was also investigated for child neglect in 1998 when they were living in Dudley and Donna Wood was married to Mark Bonneville, 36.
After Bonneville was arrested for alleged domestic abuse on Wood, officials investigated allegations that the couple was doing drugs with Wood's two daughters and the daughters were not going to school, sources said.
"The older daughter moved out after the investigation and left her kid with [Wood] to take care of," said a source.
Devlin's biological father, Paul Devlin, is deceased, and Wood and Devlin are collecting Social Security benefits as a result of his death, sources said.
Of the 10 finalists who meet the judge's criteria and will go to the next round this weekend, at least one is not fazed by the family's background.
"They seem like a normal family to me. Nobody's perfect," said Bill Beck, 24, of Clinton.
Yep, it's the American Way for a welfare mom to pimp her 22-year-old daughter -- who was a teen mother and now living at home -- on national TV to a total stranger.