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Empty Bowls

Brianna Farringer
Nov 3, 2017
2 min read

SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. (Nov. 3, 2018) Empty Bowls is an international effort to help raise money and awareness to end hunger. The event is brought about and created by Imagine Render a non-profit organization who’s mission is to create positive and lasting social change through arts, education and projects that build the community. The Empty Bowls effort held at Slippery Rock University was focused on helping to end the fight of hunger in the Butler area. In Butler, 30% of the population is impoverished and about 50% of children live in poverty. This 30% rate is twice that of our nations poverty rate. All proceeds collected at the Empty Bowls event will be donated to Slippery Rock’s Feed My Sheep. This is a local food bank that provides food for those in need around the community.

Slippery Rock University’s Office for Community Engaged Learning organized Empty Bowls on campus and was led by Sam Hauser, the Service Leadership Coordinator. The event was held on campus in the Smith Student Center ballroom on November 3, 2018 from 3p.m. to 6 p.m. Between this time period guests could come and go as they pleased. Also on November 3, 2018 there was a sit down luncheon earlier in the day. Empty Bowls event at Slippery Rock has been a yearly event. This being said, the organization took last year off to really rebuild the event for this year’s Empty Bowls. The goal was to create much more awareness of the event and the awareness of the fight to end hunger.

At Empty Bowls, guest would choose a bowl created by Potters Guild a local group of artist who create pottery at the Ceramics Studio at Slippery Rock University. Those who organized the event choose ceramics from this group to keep the localization factor in place and bring awareness to the beautiful work the group creates. After choosing a bowl, guest would then pay for the bowl as their donation to the Feed My Sheep food bank. Guests could then choose from different soup options to fill up their new bowls and top it off with crackers or a slice of bread.

Tables were set up in the ballroom of the Smith Student Center for guest to eat and enjoy their soup. During the course of the event, many different performing arts groups from Slippery Rock University performed live. Some of these groups included the Flute Ensemble and SRU Illusions dance group.

Sam Hauser, Service Leadership Coordinator for the Office for Community Engaged Learning at Slippery Rock University explains the message and purpose of the Empty Bowls event.