Abracadabra Jewelry and Gem Gallery is a downtown Ann Arbor-based store that is hosting a weekly giveaway. This latest event is meant to show gratefulness to people providing essential support and services during such a trying time.
“A cornerstone of our ethic at Abra has always been to give back and pay it forward to the community, arts and causes that capture our hearts,” reads the store’s announcement posts on both Facebook and Instagram. “Now, we would like to send a little bit of brightness to a frontline worker that you are grateful for.”
In order to nominate someone for this giveaway, you can tag and share their story on one of Abracadabra’s posts on social media.
The post reads: “We want to share the stories of these heroes and give away a gift card of a donated piece of jewelry to a randomly selected nominee each Friday at 7 p.m. until we can reopen again. We miss being open downtown and want to give back to the community.”
The shop is family-owned since 1974.
“Steven, now retired while his wife Katherine runs the business, is still a passionate gemstone lover,” said Abracadabra’s digital content coordinator, Courtney McDonough Haughton. “He arrived in Ann Arbor from Detroit as a squatter at the Art Fair in 1973. His mission from the start involved making ethically sourced, and mindful of our environment, jewelry. Since the beginning, we’ve been using post-consumer recycled metals, and ethically sourced stones, for all the jewelry we make, as well as featuring handmade jewelry from other talented artists who share those values.”
While Abracadabra has been closed since last month due to Covid-19, it still maintains its presence with an online business.
“Since Gov. Whitmer initiated the stay-at-home mandate, we, like most non-essentials, have closed our doors to the public,” said Haughton. “We knew it was in the best interest of our staff and our community, but it has been a hard transition. Our online presence is small and to survive, we have had to quickly update our way of doing business in all ways with much more of an online focus than we ever envisioned. We worked quickly to put up an Etsy shop temporarily to keep some impressions running and have been working behind the scenes to get a storefront with shopping cart going on our website. We are now proud to say it is up with much work yet to do. Getting all of our inventory photographed and uploaded will take some time, especially with limited access to the shop.”
Information originally sourced from PrideSource.
