Helping to fill empty bowls

The bowls are still empty, 200 of them. But maybe they won't be for long. They're just waiting for a sponsor.

The bowls are being used to sell tickets to a Nov. 5 dinner that will be the culmination of the Empty Bowls project -- an effort to raise money for local food banks through art. Each bowl represents a place at the fund-raiser dinner, and each was made and contributed free of charge by artists -- professional and amateur -- who want to fight hunger in Southeast Missouri.

Since its inception in April, the Empty Bowl project has gone at a quick pace. The bowls are ready and preparations for the fund raiser dinner are in order. Now comes the crucial point of the project, selling the bowls and the dinner tickets that go along with them.

Today through Oct. 20, people involved with the Empty Bowl project hope to fill each of those 200 bowls on Nov. 5 at a price of $10 per seat. The dinner will be held at the Salvation Army Community Center, and the money raised will go to the Salvation Army, Red Star Food Pantry and the Bootheel Food Bank in Sikeston, Mo.

The Southeast Missouri Dietetics Association will prepare a simple, symbolic soup meal to fill the bowls for the event.

Pam Duncan, a local potter and one of the lead members of the project, said forging new ground in Cape Girardeau with Empty Bowls has been a bit easier than expected. This year marks the first time Empty Bowls, a program used in other cities, has been organized locally.

"There were moments I really wondered," Duncan said of the project's progress. "But for each person we asked, there were three waiting in line to help."

On Thursday, the bowls sat neatly arranged at Jars of Clay Studio, where Duncan performs her craft. Laid out beside each other, the bowls showed the diversity of people who made them, from experienced potters in the Best of Missouri Hands to college art students to the elderly of Cape Girardeau's south side.

Some are imprinted with designs, some with multiple glazes. To Duncan, they're all beautiful. She shows off the different features of several of them. Like the potter she is, she explains how some of the bowls were glazed to create visually interesting patterns, like bands of different hues.

These bowls will have an impact even after the fund-raising event, Duncan said.

"When you see these in your kitchen cabinets, these bowls are going to remind you there are people who don't have food in their kitchen," Duncan said.

Former art major Mary Higgins made about 20 of the bowls. The project, she said, made her pick up pottery after a long dormant period.

"It was a great time to get back into it with a great project," Higgins said.

Duncan loaded many of the 200 bowls and took them to the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, Grace Cafe and Edward Bernard Gallery for display later that day. Representatives of the project will be at each of those places tonight, selling tickets to the dinner.

Arts Council executive director Delilah Tayloe said using art for the benefit of others is crucial to art's mission. She's heard of the success of Empty Bowls projects in other areas and hopes the local project will share that success.

"It's a way that people can create together and inspire one another, and at the same time help those who really need help," Tayloe said. "It's like a perfect circle of inclusion to stimulate creativity and turn it into a hand that's reaching out to help."

Denise Lincoln at the Cape Area Family Resource Center has been key to the project, helping organize the event and handling donations. Through a $1,000 Missouri Arts Council grant, Lincoln's organization was able to hold classes for children and the elderly on Cape Girardeau's south side to make bowls. Those classes will probably go on after this year's Empty Bowls fund raiser, and might be a part of Empty Bowls in future years, she said.

"Everybody in the community's aware of ongoing hunger needs," Lincoln said. "This is really kind of a unique way to get at the issue in an artistic and celebratory way."

Lincoln said the vital step, selling tickets to the dinner, is yet to be completed. But she thinks the community will get behind the effort.

"It takes a little time to explain the concept," Lincoln said, "but once you do, people's eyes just kind of light up and they say 'This is a really neat idea.'"

For more information on how to help, call Lincoln at 334-8170.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182