The Lightkeepers Project began with a story that started long before it ever had a name.
My husband, Tom, was once one of the children we hope to reach.
He grew up experiencing abuse, neglect, and circumstances no child should have to carry. Too often, the people who should have protected him didn’t. Like so many children, he learned what it felt like to be left in the dark-to hurt while the world around him continued on.
But there were a few people along the way who chose to see him.
We won’t share their names because their stories are theirs to tell, but their presence became an important part of his story. They couldn’t fix everything or erase what had happened to him. They were simply there when he needed someone to be.
And decades later, he still remembers them.
That has stayed with me throughout our years together. Those people may never fully understand the impact they had on one child’s life. But they taught us something important:
You don’t have to save a child’s entire world to bring light into it. Sometimes you simply have to refuse to look away.
🎵 The Song That Started It All
This year, Tom began writing music again. Much of what he writes comes from the life he has lived, and eventually he wrote a song called Underexposed.
He wrote it from a place he understood personally.
The song is about children who are abused, neglected, forgotten, or left behind while the world looks the other way. It’s about the children whose suffering happens quietly-the ones who may be right in front of us and still somehow remain unseen.
But more than anything, Underexposed is a cry for us to see them.
To stop looking away.
To be their light.
To be their voice when they don’t have one of their own.
When I heard it, something changed in me.
I’ve always known that I wanted to help people. What I didn’t know was what that was supposed to look like or where I was supposed to begin.
Then I heard this song.
And in my heart, I truly believe God was showing me where I was supposed to begin.
The Lightkeepers Project grew from that moment.
🎵 The Song That Started It All
Underexposed was written from a place of lived experience. It tells the story of children who are hurting in plain sight-the ones too often overlooked, unheard, and left in the dark.
This song became more than music to us. It became the spark that led to The Lightkeepers Project.
Listen to Underexposed below.
✨ For the Children Left in the Dark
This project is about more than backpacks at the beginning of the school year or presents underneath a Christmas tree. We absolutely want to provide those things when children need them. We want to celebrate birthdays, meet practical needs, help families find resources, and bring joy wherever we can.
But that isn’t where our mission ends.
We are here for the child who feels invisible.
The child everyone assumes someone else will help.
The child whose story is complicated.
The child who has learned not to ask anymore.
The child who needs someone to notice.
The child who has been left behind.
We want to build relationships, create connections, advocate when we can, find resources when we can’t provide something ourselves, and continue looking for ways to help instead of simply saying, “That’s not what we do.”
Because sometimes what changes a child’s life isn’t one enormous act.
Sometimes it’s one person who remembers their birthday.
One person who notices something isn’t right.
One person who listens.
One person who keeps showing up.
One person who believes them.
One person who chooses not to look away.
🕯️ Why We Are Lightkeepers
We cannot rewrite what happened to Tom when he was a child.
But we can honor the people who brought light into his life by becoming that light for someone else.
That is what The Lightkeepers Project means to us.
We want children who have spent too much time in the darkness to know that someone sees them. Someone cares what happens next. Someone believes their story matters.
And maybe, years from now, a child we meet will remember that there was once someone who showed up when they needed it most—just as Tom still remembers the people who did that for him.
That is the light we want to keep.
That is the light we want to pass on.
💛 From Lived Experience to Purpose
Tom’s story is not only part of how The Lightkeepers Project began-it will help shape how we carry out its mission.
He knows what it is like to be the child adults failed to protect. He also knows what it means when even one person chooses to show up anyway. Those experiences give him a perspective that cannot be learned from a handbook or training course.
As a co-founder of The Lightkeepers Project, Tom brings that perspective with him.
He understands that children who have experienced abuse or neglect may not trust easily. They may be angry, withdrawn, guarded, scared, or unsure how to accept help. Sometimes the child who appears to want help the least may be the child who most needs someone not to give up on them.
His role isn’t to assume that every child’s experience is the same as his.
It’s to remember what it felt like when people didn’t listen-and make sure we do.
His testimony reminds us that the effects of childhood trauma don’t simply disappear when childhood ends. But it also reminds us that the people who bring light into a child’s darkest seasons can become part of that child’s story forever.
What happened to him should never have happened.
But today, he has an opportunity to take something that once brought darkness into his life and use what he learned from surviving it to bring light to someone else’s.
He was once one of the children left in the dark.
Now he gets to be a Lightkeeper.
And that is why The Lightkeepers Project exists.