On Saturday November 4th my wife Jody, some of our staff and I attended the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Hope for a Cure Gala, here at the Rochester NY Chapter. This gala is an annual ritual for us and has a great deal of personal meaning for the both of us.
JDRFs mission is to find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes, which is often referred to as juvenile diabetes. Type I diabetes is a very serious, devastating, chronic disease that usually strikes children or young adults. The cause of Type 1 diabetes is unknown and currently there is no cure - only maintenance. Type I diabetes is often confused with Type 2 Diabetes, which generally occurs in older adults (although there is an increase of Type 2 in children) and often can be controlled with changes in diet and lifestyle.
JDRR, a true grassroots organization, was founded in 1970 by parents of children with Type I diabetes. It was one of my customers, who just happened to be one of those parents, who stopped into my store with her beautiful daughter a number of years back and asked if I would be interested in supporting her team for the upcoming Walk to Cure Diabetes. I said sure.Thus began my involvement with the JDRF, what to me is one of the most rewarding relationships in my life.
My connection to diabetes is not direct. Nobody in my family has the disease, but that little girl that walked into my store that day does. Over the years, as my involvement in the organization has grown (I currently sit on the Rochester Chapter's Board of Directors). I am repeatedly amazed at the courage and grace shown by the children I have met, in their daily, literal life and death struggles, with this disease.
It has become a tradition for myself, my wife, and my store to create and donate two very special pieces of diamond jewelry for the JDRF Hope for a Cure Gala. Every year I design and craft a necklace to be raffled off along with a matching bracelet that is actioned off with all of the proceeds going directly to JDRF to help fund a cure. 
This is one of my very favorite pet projects. One that I really look forward to every year. This year I decided to do a "Journey" pendant along with a matching bracelet. Journey jewelry is an elegant and simple concept; to honor a couple's love on their journey though life.
Journey jewelry is a series of at least five diamonds that graduate from small to large, in a straight line or a curve. It is, as I said earlier, a very simple and elegant idea and I really do love simple and elegant design. I however can never leave anything alone and am always looking for a way to make something unique without making it complicated or overdone, thus risk loosing its original simple beauty.
I really was not sure how much you can do with a straight line of graduating diamonds. So I did what I always do in this kind of situation; I just start to fool around with no particular goal in mind and see what I come up with. What I came up with this time is the "falling leaves" pattern of the prongs, simple, elegant and unique. The pendant and its matching bracelet were a huge hit. We broke a record for raffle ticket sales, raised more money than ever before for JDRF and had a wonderful evening with good friends. It just doesn't get much better than that. [for information on this or any other West Jewelry design, please email me.]
And that's how I see the world of jewelry from Rochester, NY.
David West Nytch CGA www.westandcompany.com
Comments