Empty Bowls Project lets you eat your fill while helping others

Breakfast Tuesday was a banana and a thing of yogurt. I had a macaroni dish and peaches and cream for lunch and a salad for dinner.

I'm not counting calories. I'm counting my blessings.

The Food and Agriculture Organization published a report in September that said 923 million people in the world were hungry. Not growling stomach hungry, but undernourished, begging for bread, actually starving hungry.

Volunteers at the Salvation Army in Cape Girardeau said they ran out of food on one of the days during last week's Meals with Friends program. They also said there are double the amount of people coming for meals this year than there were in 2007.

This weekend you have a chance to help. The Empty Bowls project will be hosting their annual meal from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Salvation Army in Cape Girardeau. Empty Bowls is a national not-for-profit program that helps fund food banks on local levels. For $10 you get a modest meal and a handmade clay bowl.

The meal, called "modest," actually sounds quite good. Dr. Anne Marietta teaches community nutrition at Southeast Missouri State University. She's been involved with Empty Bowls in some way or another since it started. She has four bowls proudly displayed on a shelf in her office and posters outside advertising the event.

Marietta has even gotten her students involved in grant writing and in cooking. They'll make soup, serve bread, a drink and dessert.

Mourners of Grace Cafe will be delighted to know that the lentil soup will be offered along with a beef vegetable soup and bread from both Schnuck's and Panera. Panera Bread Company often donates their day old bread to charities who qualify and apply for it. Marietta filled her Ford Escape with giant bags of their unsold loaves and sandwich breads.

There will be cookies and brownies for dessert, and you get to take home a bowl.

For the past few months the basement of Garden Gallery has been full of potters, artists, chiropractors, psychologists, students and dozens of other people molding bowls, firing bowls and glazing bowls for the event. Around 500 will be completed for people to take home. Creative Ewe Pottery on Independence also donated time, resources and material.

The Empty Bowls project received a grant this year from the United Way. They were able to afford clay and more advertising, but to be successful they need you. And all you have to do is eat.

This year Marietta's students decided that two suppers instead of one would make more money for the organization. What ingenious business people, these students at Southeast are.

The second meal features different soup and will be from 5 to 7 p.m., Wednesday in Dearmont Hall on Southeast's campus. For Wednesday tickets go to Southeast's Bookstore on campus.

For tickets to the Sunday meal, visit Garden Gallery, Burritoville, Creative Ewe or the Arts Council downtown.