HOUSTON \u2013 September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, a time to recognize the children facing cancer and the parents, siblings and loved ones walking alongside them.<\/p>\n
For Houston families navigating that journey, Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Family Alliance provides something incredibly important: support from people who understand.<\/p>\n
Founded by parents of children with cancer for families of children with cancer, Candlelighters provides emotional, educational and practical support throughout a family\u2019s childhood cancer journey. The organization traces its roots to parent support groups at Texas Children\u2019s Cancer Center and MD Anderson Children\u2019s Cancer Hospital and has been serving Houston-area families for more than three decades.<\/p>\n
Support that goes beyond the hospital room<\/p>\n
A childhood cancer diagnosis affects the entire family and many of the challenges families face aren\u2019t medical.<\/p>\n
Candlelighters helps fill those gaps.<\/p>\n
Through its Parent Consultant program, parents who have experienced childhood cancer themselves help other families navigate the overwhelming world that can follow a diagnosis. Candlelighters also provides practical assistance including hospital parking, meal passes, gas and grocery gift cards, along with family programs designed to provide connection, encouragement and moments of normalcy.<\/p>\n
And those seemingly small expenses can make an enormous difference.<\/p>\n
Hospital parking, for example, is one of the organization\u2019s most requested forms of assistance. Parking in the Texas Medical Center can cost $20 per day. For a family making repeated trips for appointments or spending weeks or months alongside a child in the hospital, that expense can add up to thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n
In 2025 alone, Candlelighters reports serving 5,756 families, providing more than 4,800 hours of support and 11,034 parking validations.<\/p>\n
All Candlelighters programs and services are provided at no cost to childhood cancer families.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 Community: Helping Houston help Houston<\/p>\n
Throughout September, KPRC 2 will introduce you to some of the families behind those numbers and show how Candlelighters\u2019 work is making a difference right here in our community.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll also share ways Houstonians can get involved, beginning with the Candlelighters Fun Walk<\/a> on Saturday, September 12, at Terry Hershey Park. The annual event raises funds and awareness for childhood cancer families while bringing the community together to walk alongside them.<\/p>\n Later this month, we\u2019ll take a closer look at the financial burden of hospital parking and how something as simple as a $20 donation<\/a> can help make one difficult day a little easier for a local family.<\/p>\n Because when a child is fighting cancer, a family\u2019s focus should be on their child, not whether they can afford to park the car.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why we\u2019re proud to stand with Candlelighters this September.<\/p>\n No family should have to face childhood cancer alone.<\/p>\n Learn more about Candlelighters<\/a>, its services<\/a>, the Fun Walk<\/a>, and ways you can help on the Candlelighters<\/a> website.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, a time to recognize the children facing cancer and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[149345,149346,149347,447,17294,64,2038,56,89551,149350,58,57,149344,149349,149348],"class_list":["post-430041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-candlelighters-fun-walk","tag-candlelighters-houston","tag-childhood-cancer-awareness-month","tag-community","tag-energy-transfer","tag-events","tag-families","tag-houston","tag-houston-christian-university","tag-houston-families","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-kprc-community","tag-md-anderson-childrens-cancer-hospital","tag-texas-childrens-cancer-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}