The Unforgettables Foundation Hosts 17th Annual Lights for Little Lives Memorial Walk by Linda Stratton - City News Group, Inc.

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The Unforgettables Foundation Hosts 17th Annual Lights for Little Lives Memorial Walk

By Linda Stratton, Community Writer
December 21, 2016 at 11:34am. Views: 97

LOMA LINDA>> Each New Year’s Eve since 2000, a large group, including parents and loved ones who have lost children in the past year or at any time during their lives, gathers at 3:30 pm at the Ronald McDonald House, 11365 Anderson Street in Loma Linda to participate in the moving Lights for Little Lives Memorial Ceremony presented by Redlands-based The Unforgettables Foundation (TUF). This year, three families who lost a child including Andrea and Andres Garcia; Rocio and Ruben Hernandez; and Michael and Jennifer Zambrano, will release a dove at sunset joined by 12 doves in a memorial flight. Many say the dove flight, symbolic of a heavenly journey, is a key highlight of the celebratory awareness event. This moving event is free and open to the public as a way of remembering all children who have lost their lives. The foundation also recognizes those who work to heal, rescue and save children. Three physicians including Dr. Lance Brown, MD; Dr. Douglas Deming, MD; and Dr. Kay Mukergee, MD; will receive Top Doctor Pediatric awards for their compassionate care toward our area children. Ken Campbell will receive the Unforgettable Kiwanis Friend of Children Award. After the ceremony, a 3-block walk will commence led by boy scouts, children, physicians, firemen, funeral professionals, volunteers and faith community leaders. The walk continues down Anderson Street and ends at the Campus Hill Church where there will be a 40-minute ceremony of candle lighting and name reading. Numerous families attend this event annually to recognize a child who has passed. The Lights for Little Lives Memorial Walk and Candle Lighting Ceremony was the very first public event created by TUF after a full year of serving families across the region. The foundation aids families of children 18 years of age down to 32 weeks of pregnancy for all causes of childhood death. To date, more than 5,000 families have been helped with financial and burial support from more than 80 cities in Southern California. The Orange Belt Funeral Directors Association, various clergy associations and medical associations in the region collaborate with the heartwarming celebration of our children in life and in death. The Unforgettables, started as a grass roots cause with the compassionate mission of near daily assisting financially struggling families with funeral costs during the loss of their child, is now as a locally created cause helping nearly 250 families a year, 5,000 in all since inception in SoCal, Southern Nevada and Canada. Chapters are in the works in other areas of the country as well.

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