Action Tips: Organize a Candlelight Vigil for Your Cause

Want to make a huge visual impact? Host a candlelight vigil. A vigil is a great way to inspire people while proving a very important point.

First things first...

Pick a cause. What are you passionate about? What do you want people to do something about? There’s your cause.

Find a venue. Pick a place outside that can accommodate a lot of people. Maybe a school sports field (think baseball or football field). Ask for permission to use it.

What else will you do?

Maybe you can find a local band to play, or maybe some art students can display some artwork that is relevant to your cause. Of course, you don’t have to, but if you wanted to make it longer, add whatever you think would be good.

Talk, talk, talk (but not too much).

Give a short speech for everyone who is there. Prepare something to say, thanking people for coming, and explaining what the vigil is for and what it represents. See if you can get 400 people to hold a candle and each candle can represent a statistic. Like if your cause is Darfur, each candle can represent 1,000 lives already lost in Darfur. 400 candles will look like a lot – imagining 1,000 times that amount will really get the message across to people.

Light up.

The candles, that is. Have it be silent, and let the candles burn for maybe five or ten minutes for people to get the full effect. After a few moments of silence, announce again to the people the need for action to be taken. Hopefully, at this point, they will be moved and motivated!

Give out info.

Give them a short list of facts relevant to your cause. Just be sure that they’re compelling facts that will prompt people to take action.

Tell them what they can do now. Give them websites that they can visit to learn more (like Do Something!), or connect them to organizations that they can donate to.