Asheville's Empty Bowls event full of giving spirit Fundraiser for MANNA FoodBank proves too popular
Posted 09/27/11
ASHEVILLE — Almost all the bowls stacked in Annette Glenn’s cabinet or displayed proudly on countertops serve a function beyond helping her feed her Pisgah Forest family.
They are daily reminders of how so many other families can’t feed themselves.
Glenn estimates that 95 percent of her personal bowl collection is from previous Empty Bowls events, a food and art benefit concept that has raised millions of dollars for anti-hunger organizations across the globe and locally for groups like MANNA FoodBank.
Glenn added a new bowl to her collection Monday: She was one of about 600 people who attended MANNA FoodBank’s 10th annual Empty Bowls lunch at Doubletree Biltmore Hotel.
For the first time, the food bank also hosted a dinner event, which drew an estimated 125-150 people, spokesperson Joshua Stack said.
Organizers from the nonprofit, which distributed 9.1 million pounds of food to partner agencies in Western North Carolina last year, added the dinner option because the annual luncheon consistently sold out.
Based on the estimated ticket sales, the events raised about $19,000 for the organization, which can provide three meals for every donated dollar, Stack said. Stack said official numbers would be available later this week.
The money may help alleviate a major shortfall this year.
MANNA FoodBank is facing the loss of federal food and funding in proposed government budget cuts.
About one-third of the food distributed last year came from government food commodities, Stack said.
Event began in 1990s
“I think nobody should go without a meal,” Glenn said of the reason behind her commitment as a volunteer and supporter of Empty Bowls, which stretches back to the 1990s.
Empty Bowls is the second-largest annual fundraiser for MANNA, and all those attending received a handmade bowl of their choice, homemade soup, bread and dessert.
Two Michigan art teachers, Lisa Blackburn and John Hartom, created the Empty Bowls concept in 1990. They have been living in Burnsville since 2004.
Hartom helped run the Collector’s Corner table Monday afternoon, featuring about 50 additional bowls for sale from artists, most from Western North Carolina.
“Twenty-one years ago, we were just having lunch,” Hartom said of the simple, original event that has evolved as it’s been adopted in more than 30 states.
Hartom was picking up bowls as late as yesterday, and all these years later, he continues to be astonished by his fellow artists’ generosity, he said.
Hartom said he couldn’t begin to count the number of artists involved in some capacity. He estimated at least 200 donate bowls. But there have been other gestures of support that didn’t make official donation lists.
One artist glazed and decorated bowls for the event when she didn’t have time to create her own bowls. Another donated 225 pounds of red earthenware for Empty Bowls artists.
Artists’ contributions
The Empty Bowls event is months in the making and requires significant organized effort from the arts community
Many of those artists are connected to the Highland Clay and Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts. The center hosts the Empty Bowls Project class that creates work for the event. This year, the group produced at least 800 bowls.
Other artists hosted bowl-making days leading up the benefit, including Hand in Hand Gallery in Flat Rock, and Hartom and Imagine Render studio in Burnsville. Members of the community could stop by and help decorate and complete bowls.
After greeting his longtime friends, neighbors and even one of his doctors Monday afternoon, Hartom noted that he didn’t anticipate that Empty Bowls would be such a community builder, that it would connect various segments of an area through a shared concern for a shared need.
“The connections; we never thought about that,” he said. “We only thought about the money that would be raised.”
For Jennifer Scott, Empty Bowls is a family tradition that impacts the Fairview clan’s perspective throughout the year.
“It helps continue to donate and give,” she said.
She’s been to the Empty Bowls luncheon “six or seven times,” she said. “I’ve got to go home and count my bowls to find out the exact number.”
Her son, Connor, has attended two events, including Monday’s.
Scott took the day off from work at CarePartners so she could bring Connor, 20 months, to Empty Bowls.
“You can never start too young,” she said about instilling a charitable spirit in her son.
