Empty Bowls dinner benefits local cause A REAL COMMUNITY EFFORT

BY FRANCESCA SAGALA

This year, the Empty Bowls fundraiser, which was held at New Buffalo Middle/High School Tuesday, Feb. 21, was a true community effort.

Sponsored by the New Buffalo High School Student Senate and the New Buffalo Fine Arts Council, the event featured a display of glistening ceramic bowls that were made by members of the New Buffalo High School Pottery Club and attendees of the community pottery workshops, which have been taking place at the high school since October. For a suggested donation of $10, guests were invited to choose an empty bowl before enjoying a meal of chili or soup, a drink and a dessert.

Ashley Jager, secondary art teacher at New Buffalo Middle/ High School, said she’s thankful for “all the hands” that were involved in making the night a success – from students in the foods and nutrition class and teachers who made the soups to members of the student senate who dished out the food to members of the pottery club who volunteered their time at the event and the workshops.

Last year, there were 30 bowls. This year, there were 60 – and only a few were left by the night’s end.

“My goal this year was to double the output and just donate to the cause, which you see we’ve done - just tremendous support for the art department and specifically Blessings in a Backpack, which we’re all working towards,” Jager said.

Student potters began at the beginning of the year with creating the colors of the test tiles and pre-wedging all the clay for the workshops. Students were involved in every community workshop, teaching adult participants how to throw on the pottery wheel and how to handmake a bowl.

“Then they’re trimming the bowl so it’s ready for the firing, sanding the bowls and then the glazing sessions we held for community members to paint on the glaze,” Jager said, adding that students also glazed some of the bowls.

Lots of times, parents and students were working “hand in hand.”

“It was amazing to see the generational gap of this project,” Jager said.

Aaron Joseph said his mom and stepfather, Brett Riley, each made a couple of bowls in the workshop.

A freshman at New Buffalo High School, this is his first time in the pottery club.

“It’s fun just shaping the clay to whatever you want,” he said.

Riley said that pottery was something he always wanted to get involved in and that it was “an enjoyable experience to get firsthand, hands-on – literally –knowledge of it.”

Joseph especially reveled in showing him the ropes.

“He enjoys being able to have the spot where he’s showing me something rather than the opposite way – normally the dynamic is reversed,” Riley said.

Proceeds benefitted the New Buffalo chapter of Blessings in a Backpack, which is supported by Water’s Edge United Methodist Church in New Buffalo.

Mary Robertson, chair of the New Buffalo chapter, said that this year, the program has about 16 volunteers (some of whom have been there since the beginning), who pick up groceries and gather Thursdays at New Buffalo Elementary School to pack the bags of food.

Food is distributed to children every Friday, so they can have them for the weekend.

Each week, Robertson said that they put between eight and 10 food items in each bag – a couple breakfast items, lunch items and snacks. Students will receive twice as much food for the upcoming spring break, since they’ll be home all week.

For Thanksgiving, students received gift cards toward purchasing food.

To receive a bag of food, students who are free and reduced lunch at the elementary school can fill out a form from Patty Iazzetto, food services director. Robertson can also be contacted at mrobertson58@ comcast.net or 269-469-1925.

Robertson said that Empty Bowls not only raises money for a local cause, it also raises awareness of the hidden poverty in the local community.

“People come here and they think it’s a wealthy community, they don’t understand we have a need for it… When I used to do food drives at Barney’s, and a lot of tourists were so surprised we needed help here,” she said.

At one of the food drives, she met Erin Kerr, the chief executive officer of Blessings in a Backpack, who has a home in nearby Grand Beach.

Created by The Imagine Render Group, Empty Bowls is an international grassroots movement to fight hunger.