A Reason To Remember

How I Got Started

I grew up going to Bead It on the weekends, a store where kids and adults can design and make their own jewelry.  From there, I developed a love and hobby for making jewelry in my spare time.  In late 2006, I was signed up to sell my jewelry with the assistance of my younger brother Steven at the Young Entrepreneurs Marketplace at the Young Americans Center.  About two weeks prior to that event, I was shown the documentary “Paper Clips” during religious school.  This documentary is about the growing awareness of diversity in a small town in Tennessee through the collection of six million paper clips to symbolize all of the Jews that perished during the Holocaust.  I very quickly assembled some paper clip jewelry to piggy back off of that cause and sold more at the event in paper clip jewelry than I had in many of the other items I had prepared to sell.  Shorty after that event, I renamed by business A Reason To Remember, a non-profit, and begun making solely paper clip jewelry to benefit the Holocaust Awareness Institute at DU.

“Paper Clips”-A Summary

The town of Whitwell, Tennessee is a small town where anyone of a different color or religion from their own is nearly non-existent.  The middle and high school teachers and principles decided it was necessary to expose the children in their town to diversity beyond what they knew.  To do this, they studied the Holocaust.  Throughout their studies, they read several books about the Holocaust and even arranged for various survivors to come and speak to them about their experiences.  Their biggest challenge was grasping just how many people has been killed.  The question “How big is six million?” was a common question.  After some research, they learned that the paper clip, when placed over a swastika, was used to symbolize disagreement with the Nazi reign.  They set out on a mission to collect six million paper clips.  After several years, their project exploded and they had collected far more than six million.  After acquiring a boxcar that was used to transport people to concentration camps during the Holocaust, Whitwell turned that boxcar into a Holocaust memorial, putting eleven million paper clips in it to represent the eleven million total that perished during the Holocaust

The Holocaust Awareness Institute

The Holocaust Awareness Institute is located at the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver.  A part of the Institute is to educate middle and high schoolers about the Holocaust. They do this by supplying education trunks to teachers at various schools that will aid them in teaching the Holocaust to their children.  The money that I have raised through this business has gone to purchase more of these trunks, that cost $1800 a piece.  So far, I have already raised enough money to buy one trunk and am well on my way to the second one.

The Message

Although I am Jewish, the message that I hope to pass on is not only about the persecution against Jews but about supporting diversity for all peoples.  I hope that when someone wearing my jewelry is asked about what it is that they’re wearing, they will explain the story of diversity and the meaning behind the paper clip so that more will remember the Holocaust so that it will never happen again.