2024 TREE COUNT: 406

(last updated March 31st)

One of my favorite current challenges as a business owner is finding ways to let my values lead the decisions we make. We don't drive harder, push more, grow grow grow all the time. It's just not our vibe, and draining the energy of our team feels like it would run counter to the beautiful energy you feel when you receive your lockets. We move at a healthy pace, one that gives us space to take fantastic care of our customers while also taking fantastic care of ourselves, too. We slow down long enough to turn on good music, water the plants, and light incense when the mood feels right. 

When we first launched the Locket Sisters back in 2017, my sister and I had committed to donating 25% of proceeds to a different non-profit each month. We quickly realized that we could not afford to do that, which was the beginning of many tough lessons this job has taught me. Since our idealism rested with our increasing maturity as a business, there's always been a seed in my heart to return to connecting our work here to something larger than just our space as a quant jewelry studio in the Northeast Minneapolis Art District.

Our lockets go everywhere, and we feel connected to every place they're sent, every photograph we work on to get inside these tiny pieces of jewelry. It's kind of like our mutual humanity intersects for moment here in our space. Some lockets are full of joy, some wrapped in yearning, and all rooted in connection and love. Adding a structural element to this beautiful work that continues our interconnectedness, and shared energy, feels full circle and divine.

This year we've officially launched our new partnership with One Tree Planted to plant one tree for every locket we make for you. We will elect to have them planted in the areas identified as the highest need, which means the energy of your lockets will be spread around the world in new life. We've kicked this off by planting 250 trees in Ontario through lockets ordered between January 2024 and February 2024. We plan to update you monthly so you can see where your locket is connected to new life and reforestation around the world. We anticipate that this new commitment will fund several thousand newly-planted trees each year.

I first found One Tree Planted when my idealism assuredly surpassed the reality of what it costs to run a business (another one of my strong values is to paying people for their time, paying them well, and respecting that they own their time, not their employer) but at this point of interacting with One Tree Planted this healthy business has grown to a point where we're ready to give gain. The Locket Sisters is partnering with One Tree Planted, and for a few thoughtful reasons:

• First, many of the lockets we make are centered on remembering someone who has passed away. One Tree Planted will plant one tree for every locket ordered, and it feels poetic that there's an energetic connection between someone passing away, while new life blooms in a part of our shared world that could use earth-healing the most.
• Second, the vibration of nature is healing. My family and some friends and I go to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area every year for about 5-6 days. It takes until day 3 to detox our urban vibration and acclimate to remote nature, with no cell phone access, no electricity, just the beavers swimming across the lakes and the birds flying high above us. We always return home feeling like we've swam under refreshing waterfalls (and sometimes we do!) and repelled by the technology we get sucked into over and over again in the daily grind. Planting trees contributes to the beautiful, healing vibration of Earth.
• Third, we're doing it because we can. I started a business because I needed more creativity and flexibility in my life. When I left the non-profit world my second child was six weeks old, and I thought I was going to be a photographer. Nearly ten years later, it's clear to me that I'm not interested in being a Big Boss or a CEO. I like to make jewelry, I love people and their life stories, and as my therapist said this week, I seem to still have a fundamental optimism inside me that many do not. My spirit and soul are still intact within me, and I intend to do good things with my time as long as I'm allowed.

One of the beautiful things about partnering with One Tree Planted is that there is no extra work for you. Every locket plants a tree, and we intend to plant them in the "highest need areas" each month. We will share on Instagram, Facebook and our newsletter how many trees we plant each month, and where, based again on that highest need. We caught ourselves up through the January and February of 2024 by planting sponsoring 250 new trees, as we'd made 250 lockets by February 29th, 2024.

Thank you for giving us a chance to do this work, and to expand it beyond our own small world. I hope that especially for those of you who order a locket to keep a loved one close, that you can feel an extended presence of their energy in the new life planted in their name. 

Warmly, 

Allyssa