On Friday, May 23, Carleton hosted its fourth annual Empty Bowls Project Fundraiser, raising $5,425.50 for the Northfield Community Action Food Shelf. The event featured homemade soup served in handmade bowls created by ceramics students. For a suggested minimum donation of $10 per bowl, participants were able to purchase a simple meal of soup and bread and keep their handmade bowl. “It was a huge success,” says student organizer Dylan Welch ’08 (Berkeley, Calif.) of the event.
Under the guidance of visiting art professor Juliane Shibata, students made over 300 bowls and residents of various interest houses on campus cooked up pots of homemade soup. The bowls serve as “a reminder that three square meals a day are often taken for granted,” says junior studio art major and program co-coordinator Liz Alspach (Acworth, Ga.), “and of every other empty bowl around the world.”
The Empty Bowls Project is a nation-wide movement that was started in 1990 by a rural Michigan art teacher and her students. The simple concept spread across the country and the world, and Empty Bowls Project fundraisers of various sizes are held annually by art teachers and students from the elementary to the college level.
The Northfield Community Action Food Shelf is a branch of the Northfield Community Action Center (CAC). Founded in 1969, the CAC is a private, non-profit, multi-service agency serving individuals within the Northfield School district with basic needs. Over 1,000 volunteers are involved in the organization. The Food Shelf accepts food and money donations, and provides over 19,000 pounds of food to about 240 local families each month. To learn more, visit www.northfieldcac.org.