More About Us

"Give others a fish and feed them 
  once.  Teach them to fish and
  feed them for a lifetime."

Our Purpose

To train faith-based organizations in making and marketing quality handcrafted jewelry to help them become sustainable and to provide viable job skills and professional counseling services for the exploited, marginalized and disenfranchised people with whom they work assuring their successful re-integration into society, employability, and financial independence.

Jewels 4 God is committed to providing economic opportunities and mental health development to a wide range of peoples in diverse cultures in need of self-worth, vocational training, and employment.

Beneficiaries

Jewels 4 God has trained marginalized people in the U.S, Canada (Toronto, Winnipeg), India (Mumbai, Lucknow, Calcutta, Pune), South Africa (Cape Town, Pretoria), Pakistan, Jamaica, El Salvador, Swaziland, Aruba, Serbia, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, Russia, Uzbekistan (three different ministries), Pakistan, Israel, and Dominican Republic. We presently have numerous requests for help.

One of the organizations we train is Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge is widely recognized as the most successful residential program in the world for helping people with life-controlling problems.  For over 60 years Teen Challenge has been reaching out with a proven record of changed lives. 

Our History

Tim Zello first became aware of the need for helping others with the skills necessary to reenter society in 1993 shortly after the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union, when he was the first foreigner to visit nine Siberian prisons where he spoke to hundreds of inmates. Then for four years Tim and his wife, Michelle, lived in Mongolia and Russia doing missions work.  For the next eight years, Tim joined his father, Mike Zello Sr. in training workers at residential rehabilitation programs in over 86 nations.

In 2003, Tim noticed a piece of jewelry that Michelle (Tim's Wife) handcrafted for her mother’s birthday. After telling his colleagues about her creative ability and showing them jewelry she had made, the Zellos were encouraged to train the marginalized women and men at residential rehabilitation programs how to make jewelry so the residents could have a job skill that would help them successfully reenter society.

Using $2,000 from their personal savings, the Zellos purchased the sterling silver, semi-precious stones, and other supplies needed to make more jewelry with the hopes of selling enough of the finished product to raise the funds needed to provide their first training overseas.

They started selling the jewelry to family and friends. Word spread quickly of the quality and beauty of the jewelry and it wasn’t long before Michelle was selling the jewelry at home shows in their community.

Within a few months, the Zellos had the funds for the supplies and expenses necessary to travel to a Teen Challenge program in Bombay, India, where they trained women recently rescued from human trafficking and sex slavery at Falkland Road, the largest red light district in the world.  In the first year after being trained, Bombay Teen Challenge sold $20,000 worth of jewelry.

The Zellos have now trained 26+ ministries in 17 countries.

Our Team

Cofounders- Tim and Michelle Zello
Cofounders Tim and Michelle Zello 
Representative- Rachel Zello Riley
Representative- Rachel Zello Riley