Worldwide Candle Lighting Ceremony

Idlewild Presbyterian Church
1750 Union Avenue, Memphis, TN
Parking is available in the lost west of the church at Evergreen and Union Ave.
Enter via the 2nd door across from the parking lot on the west side of the church. Look for the white metal awning.

Refreshments will be served beginning at 6 p.m., and the program will begin at 6:30 p.m.

We will be joining groups from around the world in honoring our children who left us too soon. This is a beautiful ceremony and we hope you can join us.

There will also be a video presentation with photos of our children. If you’ve never submitted a photo of your child to our chapter for this event, please contact Betsy Friedl at 901-826-8750 and email your photo to info@compassionatefriendsmemphis.org. Or, you can mail the photo to Betsy at 687 Justana Drive, Collierville, TN 38017. The deadline for receiving photos is Dec. 1, 2022.

A picture table will display photos of our children, so please bring a photo of your child to add to the table.

"...that their light may always shine."

The Compassionate Friends® Worldwide Candle Lighting Ceremony unites family and friends around the world in lighting candles for one hour to honor the memories of the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and grandchildren who left too soon. As candles are lit at 7 p.m. local time, hundreds of thousands of persons commemorate and honor the memory of all children gone too soon. Now believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the 24th annual 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. TCF's WWCL started in the United States in 1997 as a small Internet observance, but has since swelled in numbers as word of the remembrance spread throughout the world. Hundreds of formal candle lighting events are held and thousands informal candle lightings are conducted in homes as families gather in quiet remembrance of  children who have died, but will never be forgotten.