But the last few weeks have made me wonder: Perhaps jewelry can mean a little bit more.
The backstory: My daughter's Girl Scout troop is earning their Jeweler badge. The girls unanimously wanted to earn it, and I admittedly had squirreled away supplies of donations of leftover items the last couple of months.
I introduced the first project, an upcycled necklace, and let them know they could make as many as they wanted, but they could only keep one. Their response: "Could we sell them for Haiti?"
Within an hour we had designed more than 100 upcycled necklaces, which were donated to church for our Hearts for Haiti ministry, a cause dear to these girls.
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Some of the upcycled necklaces made by my daughter's Junior Girl Scout troop. Funds from the sale next month go to our church's Hearts for Haiti ministry. |
But it didn't stop there. As we later talked about jewelry, what it symbolized and what it was made from, I shared some stories and jewelry from Uganda that I recently received from Ember Arts, a company that works with jewelry artists in Uganda to create upcycled jewelry with paper beads that are just gorgeous. As I shared the story of some of the artists - some of whom used to earn $1 per day in hard work - the girls' response was "Can we help them too?"
Maybe jewelry in itself doesn't change the world. But perhaps the stories behind them can change hearts.
3 comments:
Great project idea for Girl Scouts! What is the base for the up-cycled necklaces, and did you just use regular Modge Podge to apply the paper?
Melissa, the base was a metal necklace that they were going to throw away at work. Just Modge Podge to adhere and add shine and durability.
Absolutely wonderful! I left a message also on another place. My question is: The Haiti project, is it an ongoing project? How can I get in touch with organizations like that? Do you think that we could use this as our Bronze Award for my Juniors. Unfortunately my sister passed away a couple years ago, and she left droves of jewelry items behind and I managed to snag them before they got sold in an auction. I have a plastic shoebox size container that has all sorts of beads in it that would make awesome necklaces.
Thank you for your wonderful blog.
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