Pearls for a Purpose

Today is definitely a blog-worthy day! It was a day which included a special milestone that I was able to be a part of.

My neighbor, Jenny Barker (who we met up with for the Race for the Cure), somehow volunteered herself to spearhead a project to help the Dress for Success San Antonio (DFSSA) non-profit organization. According to the DFSSA Website:

Dress for Success San Antonio provides professional attire,workforce development and life skills training to more than 700 women annually so that low-income women residing in San Antonio and the surrounding area may establish a solid work history and permanently leave public assistance. With suits from Dress for Success San Antonio, women not only look their best, they feel their best and have the confidence to succeed.

To add to their confidence, Jenny's project, "Pearls for a Purpose," was started to make pearl necklace and earring sets for each of the DFSSA clients. Since Jenny knew I made jewelry, she asked me to help her with the project. Of course I was delighted to help. It worked out especially well since I had some free time while being out of work.

The project started in the first few days of February and I started helping out on February 15th. Today (only 2 months later) Jenny and I completed the last set, for a grand total of 624 necklace and earring sets for the clients. This was a big undertaking on Jenny's part. What an accomplishment to get them finished in such a short time span.

The wonderful thing was that once people heard about the project, they volunteered their services/ skills without a second thought. From assembling earring and necklace parts into kits, to making and using a pre-measured board to come up with exactly 92 pearls for each necklace, to stringing pearls onto wire, to finishing necklaces, people gave their time and energy to accomplish this project.

One of the groups of people to help with the project was a group of ladies that play Bunco together. Jenny substitutes for them occasionally. We got together at a Methodist Community Center in New Braunfels to work on the project. As you can see from the pictures, there was a large group of help (Jenny is the lady in all black with glasses). What a fun group of ladies!

Jenny was kind enough (she would say otherwise) to allow me the opportunity to be the quality control person on the project. I was the last person to look at the necklaces and earrings to make sure they were as good as they could be. This made me the bad guy at times because we wanted the DFSSA clients to get the best looking jewels. This meant I ocassionally had to reject people's hard work.

After I gave each piece my seal of approval, each set went into a sweet little mesh bag with a card in it. On the card (business card sized) was a little message from Dress for Success San Antonio on one side, and a picture of a pearl necklace with names of volunteers who worked on the project on the other side. Each necklace had a small merlot pearl drop hanging from the clasp to represent the symbol of the San Antonio chapter of Dress for Success.

It was such a blessing to be part of this project. I got to meet wonderful people along the way. I also got to spend some real quality time with Jenny. I would go over to Jenny's house (sometimes a few times a week) to help on some part of the process. It gave us a great opportunity to chat and really get to know one another. We definitely formed a strong friendship through our many hours working together. I am so glad we were able to work together to accomplish this task for such a worthy cause.

For more information on Dress for Success San Antonio, check out the following link...
http://www.dressforsuccess.org/affiliate.aspx?pageid=1&sisid=61