For Jack Maier, it’s personal. And painful.  But the 79 year old is hoping that by putting his messages on billboards, others may be spared the pain he’s suffered, not only from losing his wife to breast cancer, but also from the molestation he suffered decades ago. Maier said his wife, Myrna, was tested every year.  “I don’t know what happened.  What a beautiful woman she was,”  he said.

In addition to the messages urging women to get screened for breast cancer, Maier has also paid for billboards with messages about sexual predators who target children.  Those billboards bear the message of “Please don’t let another childhood be stolen,” next to a photo of a disappearing child on a swing. Maier only recently began talking about his own molestation that he kept secret for more than 60 years.

He’s funding the billboards with his lottery winnings, which came after he changed his usual numbers by one.  He says he usually plays numbers like family birthdays, his 1970 wedding anniversary and Christmas.   This time though, he says he decided not to play Christmas.  “I changed it to the number 24 and, by golly, three days later, I won it.  Baby Jesus was born on the 25th.  I just felt like he did not like that I gambled,”  Maier said.  He says he will continue to buy billboard space “until he runs out of money.”