By Keighla Schmidt, Staff Writer

“Everyone has a cancer story,” Marcia Johnson said. And this cancer story is one with a happy twist.

Johnson and Kelly Grosklags spend hours making beaded earrings, necklaces, bracelets, bookmarks, pens and wine stoppers and then donate the profits to a nonprofit organization, the Angel Foundation, which helps cancer patients with nonmedical needs.

The beading began in 2006 when the pair joined the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure breast cancer walk and needed to raise money. So, a friend helped the two complete novices learn beading and sell their creations.  

“Did we think we’d still be making jewelry in 2010? No, but the cause keeps us going back to the beading table,” Grosklags said. “We can all relate to the possibility of not having food at our table or a place to live. There’s a sense of connection with the reality of it.”

Before creating and selling jewelry under the name Just Cause, the women did some evaluating.

Neither have had cancer themselves, but they have each been impacted by the deadly disease. Johnson has seen her parents battle cancer and Grosklags is a psychotherapist who sees cancer patients battle life while trying to fight the disease. Just Cause: Kelly Grosklags (left) and Marcia
Johnson create jewelry and other beaded items
to donate money to the Angel Foundation, a
local nonprofit organization helping cancer
patients meet nonmedical needs.

“It really touches home for everybody, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know someone who has cancer these days,” Johnson said.

Angel Foundation

“Since 2001, the Angel Foundation has provided financial assistance for adult cancer patients to meet critical nonmedical needs, as well as education and support programs to families in the Twin Cities metro area who have a parent with cancer,” according to the organization’s Web site, www.mnangel.org.

Johnson said life goes on after a cancer diagnoses and it can be hard to keep up.

“They’re combating the need for food for their family, foreclosure on their homes (and) they need gas to get to their treatments and sometimes daycare. These are immediate, emergency needs,” Grosklags added.

Half of the profits from selling Just Cause jewelry go directly to the Angel Foundation and the other half is split between the women to cover the cost of restocking and making more jewelry.

“Angel is all local and it’s concrete, it’s at a grassroots level that we’re able to help people with cancer,” Johnson said. “We’re not scientists, so we can’t do cancer research, but we can fundraise. It gives us a purpose and makes us feel like we’re filling an immediate need right here.”

When the women sell their jewelry, they hear stories about how customers know about the Angel Foundation. Many times customers will talk about how Angel provided a bed, or financial help or gift cards for groceries.

“We can earmark what we want our money to go to,” Johnson said. “That way at parties we can tell people: ‘the money you spend tonight will help cancer patients buy food,’ or ‘tonight the money will help with mortgages.’ That’s something people really like to know and can feel good about.”

Grosklags said as a member of the board of directors for the Angel Foundation, she knows the money is well deserved and well spent.

“You can see in your community or just know the money you’ve donated is feeding someone today,” she said. “How can you not feel good about that?”

In addition to the financial assistance the Angel Foundation provides, it also hosts a summer camp for children who have been affected by cancer. They also fund a day trip to Valleyfair in the summer for many families.

Jewelry

Grosklags and Johnson had been neighbors for about 10 years in Dufferin Park. Just recently Johnson moved and a room in the basement of the new home is dedicated to Just Cause.

The soft green walls are lined with jewelry, trunks, cases of beads, thank-you cards and books as well as completed pieces. In the center is a table the two can navigate as it’s their “organized chaos.”

“I can say: ‘Marcia, where is the black onyx’ and before I even finish, she tells me right where it is,” Grosklags said.

Neither woman had been jewelry makers when they started in 2006, but now they’ve found their niche.

The pieces, which range from $16 to $60 and average about $30, are all one of a kind. They don’t follow patterns, but design and create most pieces together.

“Sometimes we’ll work alone, but we’ve found that’s not the best,” Grosklags said.

“The creative juices just start flying when we’re together and we can feed off what we’re thinking,” Johnson chimed in.

Some people have offered to help with the beading process, but the two would like to keep it small. “If it gets to the point where we can’t handle it on our own, then we’d lose the focus and get fixated on something else,” she said.

Just Cause jewelry is sold primarily through house parties. Women invite friends over and Grosklags and Johnson tell the Angel Foundation story, share a video and break out the necklaces.

“The best part is when you see what people buy,” Johnson said. “People can break out of their molds with accessories; it can be very exciting to see what people choose.”

Sometimes, emotions come out and women get excited to buy jewelry while making a difference. “It’s something they can thumb over and see and touch and then go home with that night,” Grosklags said. “They also know they’re doing something good.”

A few times the pair has been commissioned to make different pieces for groups like a wedding, a ladies golf club or a book club, but mostly they stick to letting their imaginations create the pieces.

And customers often reconnect with the jewelry makers to let them know not only how much they enjoy the jewelry, but also that they love sharing the Angel story, Grosklags said.

They’re also often bought as gifts and when the giver presents the new bling, they can include a card about the Angel Foundation.

“They are told the new jewelry is like a double gift,” Grosklags said. “People really like that.”

They’re also starting to notice their handmade pieces around the area. When Johnson went to meet her daughter’s teacher this year, she immediately recognized her necklace.

That level of awareness is one that’s come a long way since 2006.

“I look at what we made in 2006 and what we’re doing now and I’d pay people to get it back,” Grosklags joked. “It’s really come a long way.”

It all started with a contribution from each of them for $150.

“Now there’s hardly a time we go to the store and spend less than that,” Grosklags said. “We’ve upgraded the quality and it shows.”

Parties started with their friends and families and quickly spread to where they now have between 30 and 40 parties each year. In 2008 they gave about $12,000 to the Angel Foundation.

“It just makes you feel good about all the time you put in,” Johnson said.

“We both have two kids, a husband and a dog and our lives,” Grosklags said. “This is something we do on top of all of that because we love it and believe in the cause.”

Grosklags and Johnson were recently recognized by the Minnesota Timberwolves, as “Heroes in the Making.”

Keighla Schmidt can be reached at kschmidt@swpub.com.