"Is this a scam, or just really sad??? (Baby funeral fund)"
There's an area where I live where we've had panhandlers since the 1980s, it's got a lot of traffic and long lights.
Today there was a group of 4 people holding signs that said "FUNERAL FUND" and it had a picture of a baby girl, maybe a year or two old. They were fairly aggressively walking up/down rows of cars, making a lot of eye contact and holding the sign with the little baby on it with some details about the death - that I couldn't bring myself to read?
If it's a scam it's a good one.
If it's not then it's the most depressing thing I've seen all month.