Starting in 5th grade, I founded Beautiful Beaders, a charity organization that made and sold jewelry to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Even though my 5th grade teacher told me I couldn’t do it, I did. Over the next year, this group grew to include 5 friends and we raised $5,000 our first year. Together, we made beaded jewelry at sleepovers and organized dates to sell our jewelry at local grocery shops. In the Pittsburgh winter, we still sold jewelry outside, often taking turns to thaw our hands inside the store so we could close the bag that newly bought jewelry was in. We became a well-known local group and established a name for ourselves when interviewing with the radio station Wish 99.7.
Beautiful Beaders raised and donated $18,000 and granted 3 complete wishes over a span of 8 years. We have received plaques from Make-A-Wish, thank you cards from wish recipients, and have been recognized in magazine articles, radio station interviews, online blogs, and Make-A-Wish’s annual donor list. I spent over 500 hours dedicated to Beautiful Beaders from 5th grade until high school graduation. After graduation, selling jewelry at grocery stores stopped, but the group is now being supported online through a store on Etsy.
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