It is the Salvation Army Foundation that this year benefits from the profits from the sale of tealights. From 8 to 11 December, volunteers are also welcome. Luminnons du cœur are on sale well before the start of the party.
It is a charity operation organized by the city of Lyon as part of the Festival of Lights. With “Les Lumignons du Coeur”, Every December 8, on the occasion of the festival of lights, Lyonnaises and Lyonnais are invited to make a generous gesture that benefits a charitable association.
The principle is simple: perform an act of solidarity by buying one or more heart candles at a price of €2. The money from this sale is then donated to an association. After Gaelis in 2021, this year is the turn The Salvation Army Foundation to benefit from this initiative.
The foundation accompanies people in precarious situations every day. It offers accommodation and social and professional reintegration. In Lyon, the Salvation Army Foundation is present under the name Lyon Cité.
“It’s a good surprise”, says Sophie Jansen, director of Lyon Cité. To top it all off, the Pockemon Crew, a breakdance company, is sponsoring this operation! Group members sensitive to childhood-related causes. “The idea is also through this operation to renovate the image of the Salvation Army, in order to reach a younger audience”, explains Sophie Jansen. More generally, Luminons du Coeur sheds special light on this charitable association that needs no introduction: “The Salvation Army Foundation is known worldwide, but few people know, for example, that 1,500 people are accommodated in Lyon, including almost 800 children, she adds. This participation in the candlelight of the heart also makes it possible to emerge from certain images of Epinal”.
Lyon Cité is a complex made up of different units and services in collectives or apartments. Lyon Cité also has a social restaurant and a Food Truck which distributes more than 700 meals a day. It manages integration projects that allow 120 people in precarious situations to work. More than 300 employees who carry out all these missions.
Need volunteers
This year, the Luminons du Coeur operation will give almost 800 children housed in the foundation’s accommodation centers in Lyon the opportunity to escape for a weekend. The project is called “Les Vacances du cœur”. 35 tealights purchased thus correspond, for example, to a free day offered to a child.
The goal is to sell at least 27,500 tealights to raise almost 55,000 euros. An amount that will make it possible to finance a holiday day for each child in the accommodation centers of the metropolis of Lyon. Raising 110,000 euros would allow these children to go away for 2 days!
The Salvation Army Foundation does not hide the fact that it needs small hands: “we need volunteers from December 8th to 11th to participate in the Luminons du Coeur operation, more than 300 volunteers, even for short missions, even for a few hours”, says Sophie Jansen.
Volunteers are expected to sell candles, help prepare the scenography, maintain the candles on the solidarity fresco or even serve visitors in the refreshment bar… The Salvation Army Foundation has set up an online agenda for registration.
To support the operation, the organizers of Les Lumiignons du Coeur invite everyone to the Roseraie du Parc de la Tête d’Or. It is a light garden that awaits visitors: dthousands of flowers and bright bouquets will perfectly find their place in the rose garden. More than 3,000 tealight flowers, reeds, aquatic herbs and around 270 bouquets form a luminous tableau. Les Lumiignons du Coeur in the Parc de la Tête d’Or is the first.
The foundation also calls for the mobilization of partner merchants to participate in the operation. Candles from the heart will be offered for sale in about fifty shops in Lyon, but also in three huts installed on the occasion of the festival of lights: Place la République (2nd), Place Louis Pradel (1st) and Place Edouard Commette (5th ). ).
Finally, the Salvation Army reminds that it is possible to make a donation directly on the foundation’s website.
