Why Fifty-Seven Still Matters | Leave One Light On

Published August 3, 2026 · Updated August 5, 2026 · U.S. scope

There are numbers we remember because they measure success. Then there are numbers we remember because they tell a story.

For me, that number is 57.

One home. Fifty-seven individual lives.

At thirteen, I entered the foster home of Peg and Jerry Gorman at 5 Cedar Hill Road in Simsbury, Connecticut. I became the first of fifty-seven young people they would welcome over the years.

Peg and Jerry did not set out to build a movement. They opened their home. Again and again, they chose to notice the child standing in front of them and make room for one more.

The number matters, but not because it is large. It matters because every one of those fifty-seven children had a name, a history, a personality, fears, abilities, and a future. No one was simply “number twenty-three” or “number forty-one.”

Love does not count. Love notices.

The ripple effect cannot be counted

Every child who crossed that threshold continued living a story beyond the front door. Some became parents, professionals, neighbors, volunteers, veterans, mentors, and dependable adults for someone else. The full effect cannot be measured because compassion rarely stops with the person who first receives it.

Peg and Jerry did not change a statistic. They changed one life, repeated many times. Their ordinary faithfulness created ripples that still reach people today.

A second meaning of fifty-seven

Decades later, fifty-seven appeared in a separate national context. In November 2025, the U.S. Administration for Children and Families launched A Home for Every Child and reported that, nationwide, there were 57 licensed foster homes for every 100 children entering foster care.

These two facts are separate. One belongs to the history of a particular family and home. The other is a federal measure intended to describe foster-home capacity. They are not causally, prophetically, or statistically connected.

But together they ask us to keep people in view.

A national ratio is a signal, not a complete portrait. It does not mean forty-three children are literally without a place to sleep, and it does not tell us whether a particular home is open, appropriate, near a child’s school, able to keep siblings together, or prepared for that child’s needs. It does show why recruitment, retention, kinship connections, family strengthening, and appropriate placement capacity deserve careful attention.

Every number has a name

Statistics help us understand scale. They can show where systems are strained, where resources are underused, and where communities may need to respond. But statistics cannot tell us the value or future of an individual person.

Federal research on young people transitioning from foster care also reminds us that support involves more than a bed. Education, housing, transportation, health care, identification documents, employment, and dependable relationships can all affect whether an opportunity is reachable.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in 2025 that the federal Chafee program provides approximately $186 million annually and may support housing, employment assistance, education, and other independent-living needs. GAO also found that states returned an average of about five percent of available Chafee and Education and Training Voucher funds from fiscal years 2018 through 2022. Available support and accessible support are not always the same thing.

Empowerment begins with knowledge

A verse that has shaped my thinking says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). I do not use those words to criticize people who do not know. I hear them as a responsibility to teach, clarify, and make trustworthy knowledge easier to reach.

During my career in information technology, I learned that the best support was not solving every problem for someone else. It was giving people enough knowledge, confidence, and practical skill to move forward without shame.

I often told people, “Please do not apologize for not knowing. I am trained and paid to know—or to figure it out.” The real work was not making myself look special. It was coming beside someone, reducing frustration, building trust, and showing the way—or at least finding a responsible workaround that kept momentum going.

That same philosophy guides Leave One Light On.

Our purpose

Empowering people to discover hope, practical help, or a meaningful next step.

Strong enough to matter. Gentle enough to receive.

Good information should not be watered down. It should be tempered so people can receive it. That is our “Three Ice Cube Principle”: preserve the strength and integrity of the truth while balancing its tone, timing, and presentation.

We aim to communicate with truth and grace. We do not shame people for what they have not learned. We do not borrow someone else’s pain to attract attention. We do not ask one person to solve everything.

We illuminate possibilities, protect dignity, and invite one meaningful action.

A movement of practical compassion

Leave One Light On is a movement that empowers ordinary people to illuminate hope through practical compassion.

Not everyone is called to become a foster parent. Everyone can consider what is within reach.

You might mentor a young person, support a foster family, donate blood, explain a career path, review a résumé, offer a job shadow, share a trustworthy resource, encourage someone who feels forgotten, or simply become the dependable person who follows through.

An employer does not need to become a social-service agency. A neighbor does not need to understand every part of the child-welfare system. A professional does not need to promise a lifetime of mentorship. Each can still open one useful door.

The rule of one

Fifty-seven did not happen all at once.

It happened one child at a time. One meal. One ride. One conversation. One birthday remembered. One porch light left on.

That is the invitation now. You do not have to change the whole world today. You only have to leave one light on for someone else.

One practical action

Offer one hour of useful help.

Review one résumé. Conduct one practice interview. Explain one path into your field. Help someone organize important files. Share one trustworthy local resource. Start small, be specific, protect dignity, and follow through.

Someone does not need every door opened at once. Sometimes one open door is enough to help them see the next one.

The Steward’s Covenant

We are not owners of other people’s stories. We are stewards of the opportunities placed within our reach.

We will seek knowledge before judgment.
We will empower rather than impress.
We will invite rather than pressure.
We will tell the truth in a way that preserves dignity.
We will leave people stronger than we found them.

Leave one light on.

Sources

Source links are provided so readers can inspect the underlying publications. Population-level findings should not be applied to an individual.