Arts & Entertainment Community

‘Empty Bowls’ event helps fill hungry tummies

Since they began sponsoring the local version of the Empty Bowls project six years ago, Gig Harbor’s Altrusa club has raised more than $100,000 to help feed hungry children and families in our community.

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This year’s Empty Bowls event takes place March 5, starting at 11 a.m. at Chapel Hill Church.

Empty Bowls began in 1990 at a Michigan high school, as an art class project to raise funds for a food drive. The idea was to organize a charitable event to give artists and art students a way to make a personal difference to help alleviate hunger in their community. Students made ceramic bowls, served a simple meal of soup and bread, and invited guests to keep the bowl as a reminder of hunger in the world.

Hundreds of handmade bowls are sold and filled with soup every year at Altrusa’s Empty Bowls event. The money they raise goes to fight hunger in Gig Harbor. In top hero photo are bowls created by Wanda Garrity, who tries to make 100 of them every year to donate to Empty Bowls. Courtesy photo

As often happens within the artistic community, word spread quickly and soon Empty Bowls events were taking place all over the country. It came to the Tacoma area in the mid-1990s and, thanks to local potters and a local Unitarian church, there was an Empty Bowls event at the Olalla Bluegrass Festival for several years in the early 2000s. In 2012, Altrusa brought it to Gig Harbor.

According to the longtime Altrusa member Nancy Hohenstein, one in four children in our area qualifies for free- or reduced-price lunches.

“I think most of us in Altrusa were stunned to find out that there are people, particularly children, who were going hungry in our Gig Harbor community,” she said. “Altrusa is committed to helping solve that problem with events like Empty Bowls. And it’s just great to know how much Empty Bowls has come to mean to so many artists and art students who help by making bowls. And to our sponsors who support us and restaurants who donate soup. It’s so inspiring to be part of it!”

Local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs also help with the event, she said.

Barb Bourscheidt has donated her pottery to Empty Bowls since she lived in Arizona, years ago. Photo courtesy of Barb Bourscheidt

Potter Barb Bourscheidt has donated her work to Empty Bowls for many years, first in Arizona, then in Olalla and now in Gig Harbor.

“When I’m sitting at the potter’s wheel making bowls, I often think how grateful I am to be able to give to this project, rather than being a recipient of it,” she said. “It gives me an opportunity to serve my community using my skills and my art.”

A bowl is an ancient vessel — nearly as old as humanity’s knowledge of gathering and cooking food, Bourscheidt added. “A bowl is really the only vessel we need. It can hold food, water to drink or for washing or for sacrament.

“The image of an empty bowl is a haunting reminder of those who suffer hunger. I’m so appreciative of the hundreds of community members who support this event. I enjoy meeting them and answering questions about the hundreds of bowls we potters have donated.”

Olalla potter Jana Fisher is a regular contributor to the Empty Bowls project. Here she’s throwing a pot for this year’s event. Charlee Glock-Jackson / Gig Harbor Now

Wanda Garrity tries to donate at least 100 bowls a year. She actually starts making next year’s bowls at this year’s event, as she takes her portable wheel with her and demonstrates how bowls are made.

“The bowls I throw at the event are glazed and set aside for next year,” she said. “I try to add a few of them to each of my firings but, inevitably, I finish my last firing about a week or two before the event.”

Her demos have become a popular sidelight of Empty Bowls as people get to learn how potters “make stuff.”

Like other artists who are asked to donate work to an event, Garrity is careful about which charities she supports.

“I make sure my donations go to organizations that do great things,” she said. “It takes research to find just the right ones, especially when it comes to donating my time and pottery. Empty Bowls definitely fits.”

Garrity organizes all the artists who contribute their work. In addition to herself and Bourscheidt, they include Jana Fisher, Dan Barnett, Ann Danis, Becky Horkan, Alyse Yeaman, Erin Reetz, Nancy Corey, James Aichlmayr, Kaaren Brooks, Miles Struxness, Brian and Wendy Fuller, Linda Ricci, Judy LaMere, woodworker Dan Stromstad and art teachers Yeaman (Gig Harbor High School) and Christine Buchanan (Peninsula High School) and their students.

Olalla potter Jana Fisher finishes a bowl for the Empty Bowls event. A dozen local potters have contributed hand-thrown pots to this year’s event. Charlee Glock-Jackson / Gig Harbor Now

Tacoma’s Hilltop Artists, Throwing Mud Gallery and Open Arts Studio are also donating bowls. And potters at the Washington Correction Center for Women, through Sisters of Charity, have made bowls for the event since 2015.

Local restaurants donating soup this year include Sunset Grill, BBQ2U; Dunagan Irish Pub and Brewery, Lunchbox Laboratory, Morso, Table 47, Massimo Italian Bar and Grill and Taylor Shellfish. Panera is donating bread.

Last year, Empty Bowls was cut back significantly because of COVID concerns, Hohenstein said. Still, Altrusa raised $20,000 that was given to Gig Harbor Peninsula FISH Food Bank, Food Backpacks 4 Kids, Red Barn Youth Center, Boys & Girls Club, Harbor Hope Center and Children’s Home Society. She anticipates that this year’s recipients will be similar.