During the Haiti trip of 2017, I encountered 15 Canaan couples who were going to be married in December. Hearing their stories inspired me to bring them the symbol of hope and love, wedding rings!
As a jewelry designer and a previous studio member of Metalwerx (school and community studio for jewelry making in Waltham, MA), I shared this opportunity with the director of Metalwerx, Lindsay Minihan. She was so thrilled that she took charge of the logistics to make it come true.
On November 22, 2017, right before Thanksgiving, 12 jewelry artists gathered to complete the project with donated gold scraps. The project was led by Metalwerx board member and master jeweler, Jeff Georgantes. From testing the donated items to melting and pouring metal into ingots and rolling it out to make the half round wire, the volunteers completed all of the milling processes. Afterwards, we each selected one or more Haitian couples from photographs …By the end of the day, all 15 rings had been fabricated, polished and packed up to send to Pastor Arthur.
I revisited Canaan this past spring and was met by the married couples in a surprise party. It was so heartwarming, I wished all those ring making volunteers were there with me to receive the deep expressions of gratitude. One woman expressed how proud she is that these rings were mostly made by fellow women since the job of a metalsmith in Haiti is masculine work.
This was truly an amazing sharing of community work with the spirit of giving and gratitude!
Thank you Metalwerx!
http://userblogs.ganoksin.com/metalwerx/2017/11/28/metalwerx-pays-forward-haitian-community/
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