Springfield, Illinois · since 2007

A place to remember the children gone too soon.

The Springfield Angel of Hope statue stands in Washington Park Botanical Garden — a place of quiet remembrance for parents, families, and friends who have lost a child to miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant or childhood death.

Visit the statue Add a name to the wall
A place of remembrance

For the families who carry a name no one else can carry.

Springfield Angel of Hope is a small, volunteer-led 501(c)(3) founded by bereaved parents in 2007. Our work is the statue, the Memorial Wall, and the gatherings around them — quiet, year after year, in the same place in Washington Park Botanical Garden, for anyone in central Illinois who has lost a child.

A quiet, sunlit interior — a place to sit and remember

Visit the statue in Washington Park Botanical Garden.

Plan your visit
Botanical illustration of a blue iris

Add a name to the Memorial Wall.

A name on the wall
Two pairs of hands clasped together

Gather with us in October and December.

Our gatherings
Our founding

Built by bereaved parents, for bereaved parents.

In August 2007, parents in Springfield who had lived through the loss of a child came together to commission and fund an Angel of Hope statue — a place where this community could finally have somewhere to go.

Construction began in April 2008 at Washington Park Botanical Garden, with cement work donated by members of OPCMIA Local 18. On October 4, 2008, nearly 700 people gathered for the dedication. President Doug Reynolds and Vice President Elise LoBue unveiled the bronze angel; Lisa Johnson, traveling from Christmas Box House International in Salt Lake City, spoke about what the statue carries. The ceremony closed with the release of white doves.

Read the full story
Botanical illustration of a red cockscomb in bloom
2008Statue dedicated October 4 at Washington Park Botanical Garden
1,000+Area children's names commemorated on the Memorial Wall
2017Memorial Wall expanded with two additional walls and a new walkway
Dec 6Annual Candlelight Remembrance Ceremony, every year since 2008
Break the silence. Nurture healing. Inspire hope.
— Springfield Angel of Hope, NFP
Before you go

Each December 6, the candles are lit again.

Every year on December 6 at 7 p.m., regardless of weather, we read the names on the Memorial Wall by candlelight. The work that keeps this place — the engraving, the landscaping, the ceremony itself — is sustained entirely by the families and neighbors who care that it continues.

Support this work

Break the silence.
Nurture healing.
Inspire hope.

Support our work