Jewelers for Children held the 7th Annual Rings of Strength Tour on Thursday, May 30, 2019, at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, NV. This year marked the first year the event was not held at Mandalay Bay. With the move of the JCK Show to the Venetian/Sands Expo complex, the event relocated. The relocation allowed for participants to have easy access from the Venetian/Palazzo, the Wynn and Caesar’s Palace, all jewelry week event locations.
More than 80 participants assembled at 5:30 a.m. to either walk or run 5K, or bike one of two courses, a leisurely 15K route or a challenging 50K route. The participants who signed up built their own fundraising websites and collected more than $ 25,000 to support Jewelers for Children.
"The change in starting point really made it easy for so many attending the market week activities to participate" said John White, JFC’s Vice President for Special Programs. With a new venue attracting new participants, this year’s event pushes us past $ 350,000 in fundraising since the event began. Every year we welcome new people and new companies to this fabulous event!"
Sponsors for the event included JCK Events, Asurion, Assurant, StarLuxe, LLC, Quality Gold, Inc., Freeman Expo Service, and Ashi Diamonds.
The event attracted individuals, as well as teams, of industry supporters. Teams were organized by Quality Gold, Fellowship of the Bling, JCK Las Vegas, Team WJA and BIG. This year marked the first time recognizing the team fundraising raising the largest amount, along with the team that raised the most to be recognized with awards, along with the most creative look. Cora Lee Colaizzi led the individual fundraising efforts putting her Quality Gold team in the lead for fundraising and Bud Fluty from Absolute Brilliance took the most creative look.
Jewelers for Children was founded in 1999 by the U.S. jewelry industry with the mission of helping children in need. Since its inception, JFC has donated nearly $ 57 million to programs benefiting children whose lives have been affected by illness, abuse, or neglect through our charity partners St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®, Make-A-Wish® America, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the National CASA Association. JFC also provides support to Make-A-Wish® International, and the Santa-America Fund. This nationwide success is due to the continuing generosity of jewelry trade organizations, jewelry and watch manufacturing companies, jewelry retail stores, individual jewelry professionals, and jewelry consumers.