The Catholic religion has a tradition of lighting candles for people in need and saying a prayer for them. Even though I was raised in the Catholic church, I never really understood the tradition, so I researched it.

The candle is meant to serve as a “vigil” for the person they are praying for, much as a community holds a candle light vigil for a senseless tragedy in their community.

There are thousands of children in foster care who could stand to have someone hold a vigil for them, but that’s pretty impractical. But, you can light a candle for the child. If you had one candle in your house for every child in foster care, the first candle would be out by the time you got the last one lit, and you wouldn’t be able to sleep for all the light in your home. The last statistics from 2005 show that there were approximately 513,000 children in foster care.

If you already know a foster or adopted child, light a candle for each one of them and say a prayer of them. If you don’t know any foster or adopted children, do some research and find out how many waiting children there are in your town or county. I can’t even light enough candles for the state of Wisconsin. There are about 8,000 children in foster care at any given time.

If you want to picture a child as you light your candle, the “average” child in foster care is a Caucasian boy, between 6-8 years of age.

If you want to expand awareness of foster care and special needs adoption, arrange a community candlelight vigil. Try to get a person to hold a candle for each waiting child in your county. Call the media and explain what you are doing. The media regularly covers candle light vigils.

Whatever you choose to do remember the kids who are waiting for permanency in their lives.

Photo credit – Some of my candles