Julie Lawson
Lori Connell
Julie and her husband Alan took a medical mission trip to Honduras in late 1999. On this trip, they met and fell in love with a little Honduran girl with a congenital heart defect. Through a series of miracles, they brought Denia to the United States for life-saving heart surgery. Now permanently tied to Honduras through Denia and her family, Julie, and her husband continued visiting Honduras on various mission trips and to see the family.
In 2011 Julie was introduced to Mi Esperanza through a friend. "I knew I had found my passion project." For years prior, I had been looking for a way to use my artistic gifts to help women in the country I had come to love so dearly.
Since then, Julie founded the jewelry program and trained an amazing team of female artisans that hand-makes the Mi Esperanza jewelry line, which Julie designs. Julie served as Chairman of the Board of Mi Esperanza in 2019.