The Purpose Behind the Passion

My goal with Willow Tree Studio has always been to create beautiful jewelry that makes you feel confident, spectacular, and truly seen. Jewelry has a unique voice—it can be funky, elegant, energetic, or calming. But beyond artistry, this studio was built with a deeper mission: to empower people through kindness. I chose a profit-for-purpose model so that every purchase helps build the Deeply Rooted Fund, a sustainable charitable foundation dedicated to supporting those in desperate need, both today and well into the future.

Roots in Adversity

To understand the soul of this fund, you must understand where my story begins. Growing up in poverty, facing neglect and abuse, I was eventually placed into foster care and separated from my younger siblings. I was adopted at age nine into a family that demanded perfection and gratitude but offered control, physical and emotional abuse in return. In that environment, I found two lifelines that saved me: art and volunteering.

Art provided a quiet, safe harbor where I could drown out the chaos, while volunteering in my community offered me freedom from my family while giving me a profound sense of purpose. I realized early on that helping others fed my spirit and grounded my identity. Despite the darkness of my circumstances, I discovered a part of myself made of steel, defiant, unyielding and that simply could not be broken.

Forging Independence

My path to true freedom began in college. When I was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes my freshman year my parents had a new tool to threaten and manipulate me with. Their new means of control was threatening to cut off paying for college and my medical bills if I did not adhere to not going out to parties, not going to the Flats on the weekend, coming home on the weekends, not joining a sorority and so on despite being on the dean’s list every semester including when I was diagnosed and was blind for most of the semester. By my sophomore year I was determined to take charge of my life and was able to double my grant and financial aid money enabling me to continue in school without my parents’ support using my savings and jobs I worked while taking classes. I had to fight for my survival and my education. I never went on Spring Break, I worked two jobs in the summer I studied psychology, fascinated by the resilience of the human spirit, and set out to break the cycle of abuse—a promise I proudly kept while raising my three incredible children.

The Deeply Rooted Fund

People often ask why, at 56, after a wonderful 35-year marriage and a lifetime of hard-won stability, I decided to launch a new business alongside my son, Matthew. The answer is simple: I have more to do. The staggering need in our world today demands action. I do not take a personal profit from Willow Tree Studio; instead, those proceeds are invested directly into the Deeply Rooted Fund to provide both immediate relief and long-term support for others.