Empty Bowls Soup Event - Year 2
- Community Member
- Jul 7
- 3 min read
Written by: Bill Sanchez
What a thrill it was to partner with Stone Soup PDX on an Empty Bowls Event at
our vineyard this past June 9th. Sandy, my wife, and I have been helping put on
Empty Bowls Events for over 15 years, first with the Oregon Potter’s Association
Waterfront Blues Festival benefiting the Oregon Food Bank, then with the Visalia
Rescue Mission in California and finally with our local Church in Tigard. This is
our 2nd Empty Bowls Event working with Stone Soup PDX at our Vineyard and
Tasting room in Newberg, Oregon.
We found out about the work that Stone Soup PDX has been doing two years
ago, contacted them out of the blue, and the rest has been an amazing history
with an amazing partner. The Potter’s Vineyard hosted the event and Stone
Soup staff made and served the delicious meal. Other local potters’ including
Jon King, Charlie Piatt, Rabun Thompson and Dan Wheeler, and I made the
bowls. All proceeds from the event and other donations were raised to help
Stone Soup PDX continue their worthy cause. The meal not only quieted our
hunger, but it filled our hearts and souls with an optimism that someday all the
“Empty Bowls” will be filled in our community.
Empty Bowls is an international project to fight hunger, personalized on a
community level. The concept for “Empty Bowls” is simple. Sponsors provide
handmade pottery bowls and serve a simple meal. Guests choose a bowl to eat
from and in exchange for the meal, give a donation to benefit a local charity that
is involved in feeding the hungry.
The Empty Bowls concept began in 1990, when Michigan art teacher John
Hartom wanted students in his High School class to participate in a local food
drive. John and his wife, Lisa Blackburn, also an art educator, came up with a
unique idea—students would craft hand-made pottery bowls and invite other
students and staff to a soup lunch for donations.
On the day of the lunch, John and Lisa spoke to the group about hunger. At the
end of the meal, they related how the participants weren’t hungry because they
had just eaten, while many in the community still had “Empty Bowls”.
Hartom then invited the guests to Keep the Empty Bowls as a reminder that not
everyone got a meal that day. At that instant, to quote John, “There was a
moment of stunned silence, and the whole environment changed,”. “Lisa and I
knew something special had just happened—and we had a responsibility to
make it happen again and again if possible.”
“There was a moment of stunned silence” and the Empty Bowls were filled!
By the following year, the couple had created an information packet of materials,
using that first event as a model for others to emulate. A non-profit was formed,
and since then millions in donations have been raised around the world.
John and Lisa continue to help groups put on these events, but they remain
clearly in the background, emphasizing that this event is not about them. They
only ask organizers to use the “Empty Bowls” name and to distribute the money
locally to causes that help feed the hungry.
Thank you Stone Soup PDX and all your students and staff for making the dream possible that someday all the “Empty Bowls” will be filled in our community!
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