Funds are raised by way of particular person donations and varied occasions and initiatives held all year long, together with Giving Tuesday, a world motion that encourages folks to provide again in any means they will.
This 12 months, the WJA Basis has awarded $57,500 in scholarship funds.
Winners acquired awards in six completely different classes.
The Cindy Edelstein Scholarship was created to honor the late longtime WJA board member Cindy Edelstein and awards a $5,000 scholarship to rising superb jewellery designers or artisans.
The recipient can pursue jewellery design, metalsmithing, or enterprise programs, so long as they’re centered on enhancing their artistry and/or their designer jewellery enterprise.
This 12 months’s scholarship has been awarded to Gabrielle Saunders, a pupil on the Gemological Institute of America.
The Gabriel Love Basis Scholarship was established and funded by the Gabriel Love Basis of New York-based superb jewellery model Gabriel & Co.
The scholarship supplies funding for college kids who need to obtain skilled progress inside the jewellery trade and who plan to make use of their careers to enhance communities and take part in charitable efforts.
This 12 months’s $5,000 scholarship has been awarded to GIA pupil Oksana Membreno.
This 12 months’s Designer Class winner is Emma McSallis (Maine Faculty of Artwork and Design), and the Designer/Creator Class winner is Kindred Lubeck (GIA).
The inspiration additionally launched two new awards this 12 months—the Radiant Minds Expertise Scholarship and WJA Variety Scholarships for GIA Training.
The Radiant Minds Expertise Scholarship was created by WJA Basis, Jewelers Mutual Group, and Black in Jewellery Coalition with the objective of offering girls of shade the schooling they have to be profitable in tech-related jobs inside the jewellery and watch trade.
The recipient receives funding for a coaching or certification program centered on software program engineering, together with user-experience design, information analytics, and entrance and back-end design and net improvement, at a faculty of their alternative, permitted by the scholarship committee.
The inaugural scholarship has been awarded to Brittany Ylanlan, a pupil finding out laptop programming and cellular purposes improvement at Tidewater Group Faculty.
The Gemological Institute of America additionally made a pledge to fund new scholarships for college kids from underrepresented communities, together with BIPOC and LGBTQIA+, who need to take on-campus or on-line programs by way of GIA Training.
Recipients can choose from varied choices, together with GIA’s on-line Utilized Jewellery Skilled diploma program, the Diamond Necessities or Diamonds and Diamond Grading programs, or its on-campus Graduate Coloured Stones diploma program and Jewellery Design certificates course.
This 12 months, these scholarships have been awarded to Cloyette Harris, Koolebogile Veronicah Mosweu, Grace Omwanza, Christina Soto, Ashley Tien, and Rebecca Wagner.
The WJA Basis additionally supplies varied scholarships to college students enrolled in jewellery or metalsmithing applications at accredited faculties, universities, or coaching faculties between Aug. 1, 2022, and July 31, 2023.
Donations to the WJA Basis will be made on-line.
