HELPING Jordan Lacey
KEEP
SHINING Light The Candle for Foster Kids By Tara Ryazansky Photos by Julia Guignard
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veryone deserves to have a happy birthday. Jordan Lacey, the CEO and founder of Light The Candle, came up with the concept for her organization when she was just a teenager.
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“When I was 17 years old my cousins were adopted through foster care,” Lacey explains. “The thing that first opened my eyes to the foster care system was having these two new family members.” At the time, she was a high school student at Mater Dei Prep in Middletown, New Jersey. “Seeing how much my cousins’ lives changed moving in with my family and
getting that positive, loving environment it just sparked the question, ‘How many other children are out there who are like them, and what can I do to help these other kids?’ The biggest thing was just trying to figure out how can we make other kids who are in the foster care system smile.” Lacey came up with the idea of birthday cards.
