Zachary’s Jewelers recently held their 12th Annual Mother’s Day Jewelry Design Contest Brunch for all the 5th graders and their families from the surrounding elementary schools. Every year they ask all the participating 5th-grade classes to draw a piece of jewelry for their mother, and from those entries, the staff at Zachary’s choose semi-finalists to attend a Brunch in early May where they announce the finalists and the winners. The winning sketches are created into fine jewelry by Zachary’s Jewelers and are presented to the winners and their families!
This year, on May 7th, they announced the five finalists and presented the three winners’ pieces. The amount of joy, happiness, and appreciation in the room that Sunday was a true delight! Mothers were tearing up, and other mothers talked about how proud they were of their children; it gave people goosebumps.
These 5th graders spent hours developing these sketches for their mom – and what better gift to your mother than a gift made with true love?
Seventeen schools from across Anne Arundel County were represented including public, private, and home-schooled, and close to 200 entries were received, and twenty-five finalists were chosen for the brunch.
Leslie Rollins, a team member at Zachary’s, explained the difficult process of selecting the winners, ” First there needs to be a good story explaining the piece, and then we look to artistry, and finally can we actually design this.” Why fifth grade? Rollins continued, “It’s a perfect time. As the kids transition to middle school, this gives them a bit more confidence, and the ability to stoke their creativeness.”
This year’s winners were Mili from Cape St. Claire, who designed a root pendant saying that her mother loves to garden and the roots represent her mother’s ancestry, and the two emeralds represent her and her sister.
Another winner was Allison from St. Mary’s, who designed a bee pendant in homage to her mother (and father), who are beekeepers, and she wanted to make sure her mom has a special Mother’s Day.
And finally, Jackson from Indian Creek, whose pendant was an arrow in a bow with a ruby heart for the tip of the arrow. The significance for Jackson was that his mother spreads her love to people all around, even when she is having a bad day.
Five runners-up received a generous gift card to Michael’s in hopes that they will continue their quest for artistic creativity and a CAD drawing of their design. And everyone left with a small flower arrangement for their mother, a framed copy of their sketch, and special gemstone and critique from Zachary’s Jewelers.
