If a picture is worth a thousand words, Allyssa Woodford Hughes has done a lot of listening.

She’s the mind behind Locket Sisters, a jewelry company based out of north Minneapolis.

“We’ve made thousands and thousands and thousands of lockets,” she said.

It all started as a solution to a problem. Allyssa’s sister Amy — a traveling model at the time — wanted to keep home close. She wanted a locket but couldn’t find a company that both had beautiful necklaces — and did the work of sizing and placing the photo in the pendant. So, the sisters started the small business the kitchen table of their childhood home.

“I think when you can touch and feel it, it’s different than when it’s just a digital photo on your phone,” Allyssa said. “Whatever the photo is, there’s something about holding it or keeping it close to your heart or carrying it with you wherever you go. That makes the experience you had in that image come alive.”

Since the start of Locket Sisters, Amy has left to pursue other passions. Allyssa and her team make about 40 to 50 lockets a week during the slow season, but nearly double the count when Christmas and Mother’s Day roll around.

“We have a spot in the ordering online where you can tell us about the photo,” Allyssa said. “And the people do, they tell us so much.”

Each locket made holds a memory, a moment or milestone — some heartbreaking, others inspiring.

“We see the spectrum of humanity in people’s orders,” Allyssa said. “So, anything from really devastating loss of your somebody’s child, somebody’s partner, their parents, their friends, to celebration like a wedding photo, or a birthday, or somebody’s graduating, or they’re taking off with a Peace Corps, and they want to carry their parents — want them to carry a piece of home with them. And then everything in between, too.”

Allyssa and her team get to facilitate that connection, much like the vintage piece itself, that never goes out of style.

“A photo could pop up and I would still know the story,” Allyssa said. “It just puts a lot of meaning into the work. In a way that’s important to me.”

Most lockets ship four-to-seven days from its order date. Locket Sisters also sells permanent jewelry and resin earrings.

“You have a pump, we pump the syrup for the methadone, it’s all controlled by computer,” Dr. Sadik Ali explained to a visitor.  

For six months now, Ali has been running ‘Pathway to Recovery,’ a substance-use disorder clinic in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

He isn’t mincing words about the often-deadly impact of opioids in the city.

“Currently, we’re averaging about 100 clients a day,” Ali says. “The growing opioid crisis our community is facing is a tragedy. There’s a devastation taking place.”

The latest numbers from Hennepin County show in 2023, there were more than 10,000 emergency room visits involving opioids and 373 opioid-related fatal overdoses.  

“This is it, man,” says Duran Warsame. “You can die any moment, so you shouldn’t be playing Russian roulette.”

The 38-year-old from Minneapolis says he’s been drug-free for five months after starting treatment at the clinic.

But for a year-and-a-half, he battled an opioid addiction.

“It’s very dangerous, man, and not to take it lightly,” Warsame declares. “We have a lot of deaths; this thing is messing up our community. Today, it could be somebody [who] might have to die today, you know? We don’t know.”

One section of the clinic is used to dispense clean needles, along with methadone, naloxone, which reverses the effects of an overdose, and other medications used to treat substance-use disorders.

The work is outside the clinic walls as well.

“Giving out needles, doing outreach on the bridges, giving out syringes,” Ali notes. “Trying to get people resources like housing and things like that.” 

In another area, there’s an outpatient clinic, which provides counseling, vocational training, coordinates housing for about 38 people and other wraparound services.

Ali says about 40% of his clients are from the East African community, and about one-third are from the Native American community.

On Saturday, those services included a one-day expungement clinic for people with non-violent offenses.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office has been holding the clinics around the state.

RELATED: Expungement clinic in North Minneapolis helping clear non-violent offenses from record

“Expungement means sealing your criminal records from the public view,” explains Nilushi Ranaweera, a Minnesota assistant attorney general. “So that helps people get jobs, housing, even helping parents go on field trips with their children. They have turned their lives around, paid their dues to society, but still, a 20- or a 30-year-old conviction will drag them down.”

For Olivia Bouton of Champlin, it was a matter of sealing a misdemeanor conviction for driving with expired license plate tabs when she was 18 years old.

“It’s still better to get all that stuff off your record and have just a clean background,” she says. “Now I work in health care, so it’s not something I want to follow me around.”

The expungement procedure does not erase or destroy a person’s records, but it does seal them from public view, Ranaweera explains.

Meanwhile, Warsame is training at the clinic to be a carpenter.

He says he’s feeling hope again.

“I’m already engaged in a project over here, helping out with the detox center, making cabinets and beds for them,” he declares. “I’m looking into the long run, building houses, traditional and modern, and maybe get into trade skills like HVAC and being an electrician. It doesn’t stop here.”

Ali showed us a number of beds and cabinets that have already been constructed by clients in the training program.

But he says the clinic is also dealing with some hard truths about finances.

About 60% of the facility’s services are billable — Ali says the rest of the costs come out of his own pocket.

He hopes to open a detox unit in May, but right now, he doesn’t have the funds to do it.

“Just to build and renovate this place, we spent about $1.94 million,” Ali explains. “This place was gutted out, and this is what you see now.”

He says he’s applying for grants and hopes he can get some financial help from the state and Hennepin County.

Ali also hopes the area’s political leaders and the public are listening.  

“We’ve been begging for help. We want to get this detox up and running,” he declares. “This is not going away, and it doesn’t matter if we put our heads in the sand. It’s like trying to drain a sea with a bucket of water. And you can’t do it alone.”

Paul Tazewell designed costumes at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for over 10 productions.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS interviewed Tazewell in 2022 when he became the first Black male Oscar nominee for costume design.

At the beginning of March, he made history again.

Tazewell’s talents were recognized at the Oscars, winning Best Costume Design for his work in “Wicked.” He also made history as the first Black man to receive the honor.

“I was sent up in a rocket on the night, and I continue to circle the Earth,” Tazewell said. “It’s really, really quite a wonderful feeling to have that acknowledgment, and I’m so appreciative.”

His former Minneapolis Guthrie Theater colleague and friend, DJ Gramann II, was in the audience cheering him on when he won the prestigious award.

“I started in the world of theater and live performance. Much of that work was created at amazing theater companies like the Guthrie Theater,” Tazewell said. “It’s been maybe 20 years since I’ve designed anything at the Guthrie, but now I can design in a very confident way having all the experience that I really honed when I was in Minneapolis.”

Starting in 1995, Tazewell showcased his talents in Minneapolis as his sketches came to life on stage in over a dozen productions.

“With DJ, having that friendship and camaraderie, being able to toss around ideas with him as to how to approach certain techniques,” Tazewell said. “All of that [experience] is invaluable and to my family at the Guthrie, you know that experience has been invaluable with how I now walk through life as a designer.”

Tazewell is well-known for his creative process and clear vision to enhance storytelling through costume design, but he’s also praised for his approach to working in stressful environments.

“It’s important for me and as a priority for me to lead with engagement and kindness and how to draw the best out of other people,” he said. “The making of costumes, the designing of costumes, it can be challenging and stressful just because there is always a deadline.”

Through decades of growth and persistence, Tazewell explained he wants his story to be an inspiration for aspiring costume designers.

“I always tell especially younger people that are interested in going into costume design or going into any field of the entertainment industry to hold on to your passion,” he said. “With passion and patience, you know there is a payoff.”

Tazewell is currently working on his second film with Steven Spielberg. His first was West Side Story. He believes the current movie that features his costume designs will be seen in theaters in 2026.