Time to Sparkle
Family Pathways employees use their break time to create necklaces, bracelets and earrings. The craft isn't just a stress reliever, it's a way to raise thousands of dollars for their cause.
Last year, the center's executive director, Elan Welter-Lewis, decided to take advantage of a skill she learned years ago in college to help raise money for Family Pathways' children's services.
She had taken a jewelry-making class and determined to take it up again someday. So she rounded up her employees and taught them a few simple skills to create unique jewelry.
"They're all quick studies,"Welter-Lewis said.
The jewelry made last year was featured in a Sparkle Auction that raised more than $10,000 for the nonprofit family services organization.
Family Pathways offers counseling for families and children, adoption and foster care services and childhood mental health services.
The second annual Sparkle Auction will be held Nov. 15 at Family Pathways and will include more than 400 sets of necklaces, bracelets and earrings plus many individual items.
The jewelry makers receive beads and gemstones from around the world through a wholesaler.
The 20 women who make the jewelry use a few techniques to make the pieces. Most are strung beads but they also have some castings, heated metals with stones placed in the metal. They also use many different clasps, including toggles and magnets. Some necklaces also have removable pendants.
Welter-Lewis said that it seems like Christmas when the agency receives a box of gemstones. They never know what will be in each box.
The stones are all handworked, mostly by women in third-world countries, Welter-Lewis said.
"We love finding a bead with a small imperfection,"she said, because imperfections show the maker's touch.
"There are no repeats," said Welter-Lewis of the designs. Sometimes they follow drawings that they make of their own ideas and each piece goes through a rigorous opinion panel as the women work around the table.Hope Winkowski of Karns City, one of the employees, said sometimes she'll put a piece together and is "not in love with it." So she'll start over, sometimes several times.Due to the stressful nature of their jobs, the women find jewelry making during breaks and lunches to be relaxing.Winkowski said, "I was doing therapy with a little girl and she helped me bead. It's very therapeutic for the children."Rachel Goodman of Butler said that her children help her bead at home.The women concurred that Welter-Lewis has rubbed off on them. "She has to be doing something,"Karen Rodgers of Butler said.Rodgers and Welter-Lewis attended a social services conference where the two spent all of their hotel time making jewelry. Conference attendees heard about the jewelry and purchased some. "We came home with checks," Rodgers said."I don't think we understood the breadth of what we'd be getting into," Welter-Lewis said. Often people call asking to get into the jewelry storage room to buy gifts.Some gemstones the women use include agate, new jade, emerald jade, torquoise, rhodochrosite, zebra amazonite, cabomba jasper, pearl, aquamarine, red onyx, tiger's eye, white torquoise, lemon jade and even petrified wood.Rodgers even made a Steelers necklace. "I had to fight for those beads,"she said of the black and gold.Jewelry sets range in price from $40 to $60; some youth items cost from $10 to $20 and children's bracelets sell for about $1.A preauction sale will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday at Family Pathways, 100 Brugh Ave. The Sparkle Auction will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Nov. 15. The event will include sweet rewards, refreshments and door prizes.
