Fighting Gun Violence with Style
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Jewelery with a cause is a company that creates innovative fundraising tools in the form of jewelry for not-for-profit organizations.Jessica Mindich, a mother of two, started the company five years ago in her Connecticut home. "I was a mom that had been a lawyer looking to go back to work and looking around at a community that was still doing the same fundraising methods and people were bored of them."
Mindich creates affordable jewelry for different causes, with a portion of the proceeds going to charities around the world to help promote awareness for issues such as breast cancer, Alzheimer's and drinking water. "There isn't anything that we do that doesn't give back to a cause," Mindich says of her creations. "People were excited to wear what they believe, what they support on them. And these were inexpensive, they were eye-popping, and they had meaning behind them."
One of the most popular items is the Blue Buddha from the Talisman line. The inexpensive necklace with a priceless message even caught the eye of celebrities such as Demi Lovato, Ashley Simpson and Maria Shriver. "People were connecting with the fact they could give a $28 gift, and it would have meaning," Mindich says. "It was designed as a necklace that was going to heal the world, because the Buddha was sitting in a pose of charity and compassion and the color blue in Buddhism is the color of medicine and healing."
Mindich's latest design is one that took her to the streets of Newark, New Jersey. Made from illegal guns and shell casings found at crime scenes, the Caliber Collections features bracelets that sparkle with hope.
The idea came about when Mindich met Newark Mayor Cory Booker. "We've been looking for a long time about creative things to do with weapons," says Booker. The sale of each bracelet helps the Newark Police Department fund a gun buyback program. Booker says, "I want them to go to the most profound purpose, which is peace. I wanted them to go to something that would help to reduce violence. Something that would help inspire peace and security."
It was important to Mindich to have the bracelets represent their origins. "As much as we were not going to have the shape of a pistol or handcuffs or angry imagery in the actual bracelets, we didn't want it to be something so far from where they came," she says. "It was like any piece of jewelry. It was supposed to be a symbol."
In April her efforts paid off with the first gun buyback in Newark since 2009. "I entirely funded a gun buyback in one of the top six most dangerous cities in America. We bought back 210 guns, eight of them were assault rifles, half of them were handguns. These are guns that are really out there doing the damage.”
Mindich says, "It's my dream, my absolute dream to bring Caliber to cities across America. My desire that those cities are cities with the highest homicide rates because that's where you're going to have the highest number of illegal guns and make the biggest impact. I don't need chic bracelets from fancy cities. I want the bracelets inside to read cities like Flint, Michigan, and Oakland and New Orleans and places where guns are destroying their communities and as a result they can't rebuild their economy. That would be incredible."
"I grew up in a family that embodied the spirit that you had a responsibility to repair the world. And so I jumped, I walked, I ran to every 5K, everything, and that was how we grew up. And Jewelry for a Cause is an extension of that."
The oval shape of the bracelet mimics the trigger cage of a gun and serves as a reminder of the destruction that is caused when the trigger of a gun is pulled. Each series carries a serial number that corresponds with one of the guns that were taken off the streets of Newark by the Police Department. The pieces are made, in part, of the steel from these guns.
The oval shape of the cuff mimics the trigger cage of a gun and serves as a reminder of the destruction that is caused when the trigger of a gun is pulled. Each series carries a serial number that corresponds with one of the guns that were taken off the streets of Newark by the Police Department. The side of the cuff is hand hammered to symbolize the hard work required, not only of the police, but of each individual, in the fight to get illegal guns off the streets of their community. The pieces are handmade, no two are exactly alike. This unisex cuff is fully adjustable to fit any size wrist.
The oval shape of the bracelet mimics the trigger cage of a gun and serves as a reminder of the destruction that is caused when the trigger of a gun is pulled. Each series carries a serial number that corresponds with one of the guns that were taken off the streets of Newark by the Police Department.
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Jewelry Designer Jessica Mindich: Fighting Gun Violence With Bracelets
The Interview;Jewelry designer Jessica Mindich’s bangles are dainty, sleek, sometimes bedazzled—and made of guns. Using shotguns, pistols and rifles from Newark, N.J.’s gun buyback program, Mindich designed the Caliber Collection, a line of steel and brass bracelets. Founded in 2008, her company, Jewelry for a Cause, has already donated more than $20,000 from its sales back to Newark’s police department to continue funding the buyback program
How did you get the idea for the Caliber Collection?
I spent some time at a conference in Dec. 2011. [Newark, N.J. Mayor] Cory Booker spoke so beautifully and so vividly about the insidious problem of illegal gun violence, and specifically how it was affecting his city, Newark. And as a jewelry designer, somebody who creates jewelery as a fundraising tool, I thought, “How can we help?” We talked about creating a line of jewelry that was positive imagery, and spoke about how this is a positive transformation, and that getting illegal guns off the streets would raise the caliber of the city. The naming of the collection actually came well after that, and it was named by my 12-year-old son. It seemed to fit so perfectly because of the double entendre of the caliber of a gun, and when you get illegal guns off the streets, you raise the caliber of the city.
What came first—making jewelry or wanting to support a cause?
Wanting to give back. But wanting to give back in a way that was more than sitting in a room at meetings. I wanted to be creative, I wanted to be able to send a message that I thought was getting lost in bureaucracy. It was 2008. The economy had hit tough times and I saw that the traditional asks for just straight out donations were tougher. There were a lot of articles at the time that charities were struggling and I thought that this was an innovative fundraising tool, something new and different that people could wear as a symbol of pride, to represent a cause that they were supporting, that also could be fashionable and affordable.
You live in Greenwich, Conn. with your family. How have the Newtown shootings affected this project?
We launched the Caliber Collection on Nov. 28 [weeks before the Newtown shooting]. It didn’t change anything—it just made the rest of the world really aware of just what a big problem this is. The only positive I could possibly say that could come out of it is it helps raise awareness of the issue. It makes me so upset. It’s such a tragedy.
Why, of the myriad issues, gun violence?
I was truly enlightened to the seriousness of gun violence and how it’s destroying America’s cities by hearing Cory speak so beautifully about this. Once your eyes are opened to the insidious problem of gun violence and how it’s destroying America’s cities, you can’t turn away.
Tell us about the design of the bracelets themselves.
The Caliber bracelet is shaped as an oval, not a circle. It’s shaped like the trigger cage of a gun, an area that, if you put your finger in and pull, could cause so much destruction. But in this case, when you buy a Caliber bracelet, you’re giving back to the gun buyback amnesty program…The side of the bangles and cuffs are hand-hammered, to show that it takes the hard work of members of a community in order to create the beautiful surface that you see on top of the bracelets.
Customers have wrote you to say how much these bracelets mean to them. To you, what do these bracelets represent?
I couldn’t say it better than [one customer]: “Caliber bracelets are real guns, real lives saved, literally leading to future guns coming off the streets. You have repurposed guns. The power of guns have always been associated with the hand of a shooter. Now people can use guns to make peace…without ever having to shoot one. This is an illegal gun that no longer exists, and a gun that will never kill someone’s loved one.” And it is. It’s an illegal gun off the streets, so it cannot hurt anybody.