The Compassionate Friends’ Worldwide Candle Lighting
Excitement has been building as the thirteenth Worldwide Candle Lighting December 13, 2009 approaches. The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting unites family and friends around the globe in lighting candles for one hour to honor and remember children who have died at any age from any cause. As candles are lit at 7 p.m. local time, creating a virtual wave of light, hundreds of thousands of persons commemorate and honor children in a way that transcends all ethnic, cultural, religious, and political boundaries.
Believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the Worldwide Candle Lighting, a gift to the bereavement community from The Compassionate Friends, creates a virtual 24-hour wave of light as it moves from time zone to time zone. Hundreds of formal candle lighting events are held and thousands of informal candle lightings are conducted in homes as families gather in quiet remembrance of children who have died, but will never be forgotten.
The Worldwide Candle Lighting started in the United States in 1997 as a small Internet observance but has since swelled in numbers as word has spread throughout the world of the remembrance.
In 2008, information was submitted to TCF’s national website on services in 19 countries outside the United States. TCF was joined last year by chapters of several organizations including MISS, MADD, Parents of Murdered Children, and BPUSA and services were held in all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Information on more than 500 services open to the public and held on the day of the Worldwide Candle Lighting was submitted to The Compassionate Friends national website and posted. The submission form and the event page, listing services throughout the country and the world, will both be posted on this website in September so that you may submit information on your service.
You are also invited to post a message in the Remembrance Book which will be available during the event at TCF’s USA national website. Last year, in that short one day span, thousands of messages were received and posted from every U.S. state and Washington D.C., every territory, as well as dozens of other countries, some in foreign languages.
Here in the United States, publicity about the event has been widespread, being featured over the years in Dear Abby, Parade Magazine, Ann Landers column, Guideposts magazine, Annie’s Mailbox, and literally hundreds of U.S. newspapers, dozens of television stations, and numerous websites and personal blogs.
Though National Children’s Memorial Day has faded into the past, the Worldwide Candle Lighting has carried the torch of remembering all children, in a special way, who have died.
If no Worldwide Candle Lighting service was held near you in 2008, it is never too late to plan one this year. You are welcome to use TCF’s “Suggestions to Help Plan a Memorial Service in Conjunction with The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting©” to help in planning the service. All allied bereavement organizations, churches, funeral homes, hospices and formal and informal bereavement groups are invited to join in the remembrance. Again, please return to this site later this year before the Worldwide Candle Lighting and submit the event information form so your service can be listed with the many hundreds held in the United States and around the world. The Worldwide Candle Lighting gives bereaved families everywhere the opportunity to remember their child . . . that their light may always shine!
You are welcome to use any of the Worldwide Candle Lighting posters we have created to help publicize the event. Worldwide Candle Lighting Posters
For more information see: http://www.compassionatefriends.org
