K'an Mach Handmade Jewelry Inspired by the Cultures of Belize

Vernon Wilson is a self-taught, award-winning jewelry designer whose career began during a recession in the United States, when he turned to jewelry making after researching resilient trades at his local library. Despite childhood struggles with ADD, a Grade 5 reading level, and being discouraged from art classes, he improved his reading, taught himself to draw while serving in the U.S. Navy, and later mastered jewelry craft. He built a renowned jewelry business in Williamsburg, Virginia, earning numerous local, national, and international design awards. After a serious car accident and years of limited mobility, he recovered and chose early retirement, moving with his wife to Belize as volunteer missioners. There he taught jewelry skills to inmates, achieving a 73% non‑recidivism rate, and founded Holy Cross Anglican Primary School in one of the country’s poorest communities, growing it from three swamp-built classrooms to a leading school with nearly 500 students, a feeding program, computer lab, library, dental clinic, eco‑friendly toilets, and mostly solar power. Later in Panama, he focused on outreach through St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and created Vision of Hope to train blind artisans in jewelry making and marketing, work that drew support from the UK’s Royal National Institute for the Blind and led to consulting in Northern Ireland. He then opened Panama Bay Jewelers, the country’s most advanced jewelry studio, taught university-level jewelry courses, and eventually donated both the university jewelry school and his studio—gifted to his employees in 2023. Vernon’s works appear in churches from Texas to the Caribbean and Central America, at the Vatican, and at the U.S. Episcopal Church headquarters in New York, as well as in private collections worldwide. Featured in People Magazine and on The Oprah Winfrey Show as one of her ‘Angels,’ he has now returned to Belize with his wife to improve education through programs like New City Kids and to develop vocational training on Ambergris Caye. By 2026, he plans to open Belize’s first jewelry school, a recycled-glass art studio, and an aluminum-casting facility that will create both art and practical parts for the island, continuing a lifelong mission he jokes has kept him ‘flunking retirement’ at 77.

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For more information on the school and our vocational education program, check out:

hcefoundation.org
Spice.org