May 13

May 13 A Candle With a Purpose

It’s a modern prayer candle with a cause. When a friend was recently diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Ira DeWitt wanted to give her something more purposeful than flowers or a card– something that evoked a sense of comfort and spirituality for both the friend and her caregivers. Ira decided to create something herself, and that’s how SAINT candles, Modern Prayer Candles for a Cause, was born.

St. Louis’ own Ira DeWitt is a music executive with a PhD in education.

Available at www.saintcandles.net, these are not just any candles, these luxe gifts are blessed by a priest and rabbi, including imported holy water and a unique prayer coin from Italy at the bottom. The line features 12 different candles, each named after a patron saint, associated with a specific aspect of human life. A full range of scented products including SAINT room atomizers, roller ball perfumes, and others will launch later in summer 2019.

The first candle DeWitt made was an appeal to St. Jude - the saint of impossible causes. So it is only fitting that DeWitt has promised to give a portion of all SAINT Candles sales to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital to support its mission: Finding cures. Saving children®. DeWitt was first introduced to the work of St. Jude while arranging for St. Louis Cardinals players to visit campus and also extend invites to kids to home games (her husband Bill DeWitt III is the team owner and President). On her recent visit to the hospital, Ira was moved by the stories of the brave children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. “It was incredibly meaningful to me that the cost of care at St. Jude is free for the families so they can focus 100% on their care and recovery.” said DeWitt.

DeWitt and her husband live in St. Louis with two of their children. Their oldest daughter is a student at Yale.
Ira spends time in Los Angeles watching over the candle business as well as maintaining partnerships in television production and the music industry.