Local artists, including those from the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ ceramics program, are crafting and selling unique bowls with local restaurants to raise money for food pantries.

The ceramics program in VPA will host the Empty Bowls fundraiser Friday, which will raise money for 70 local food pantries in Onondaga County. The bowls will come with soup and bread donated by participating local restaurants.

The empty bowls sold will represent the people who struggle each day to survive without a sufficient food supply, said Michele Jordan, executive director of the Interreligious Food Consortium, one of the organizers. Each bowl will cost $20, and proceeds will go to the Interreligious Food Consortium to help those in need, she added.

Shaped Clay Society, a student club, and city businesses Clayscapes Pottery Inc. and Syracuse Ceramic Guild will also be making ceramic bowls for the event, she said.

The event is “extremely important” to the agency, as it is the group’s biggest fundraiser, she said.

“Fifty percent of the kids in Syracuse live below poverty level, the price of food keeps going up, there’s been talk about cutting food stamps, so the pantries make a connection with low-income families,” Jordan said. “It’s a way for people to try and make ends meet. Sometimes parents have to choose whether they eat or their kids eat, so it really makes a difference in their lives.”

The Strong Hearts Café, a restaurant in Syracuse, will participate in the event by donating a pot of roasted butternut squash soup, said Laura Ryan, the cafe’s general manager.

She said she supported the event because it promotes feeding hungry residents in Syracuse while raising food waste awareness.

Pastabilities, The Warehouse Cafe and Empire Brewing Co. are also participating, according to VPA’s website.

Peter Beasecker, an associate professor in VPA and one of the event’s organizers, said he expects Empty Bowls to raise $16,000 this year, which will pay for almost 12,500 pantry meals.

He said he sees it as a way for students to help the community.

Students play a large role in the fundraiser, he said.

“Students get very enthused about knowing their work goes directly to feed the hungry in Onondaga County,” he said. “The whole idea is broadening and allowing many different groups to get involved.”

Andrew McIntyre, president of the Shaped Clay Society, said he wanted to get involved because he loved both giving back to the community and making pottery.

He said he had previously been involved with Empty Bowls in Oxford, Miss., where he did his undergraduate studies.

McIntyre said all of the participants spend a lot of time making sure the bowls are one of a kind.

“Our goal is to raise a lot of money, but have the entire community involved at the same time,” he said. “We make work that people love and that people will use every day. It’ll be permanent in someone’s life and remind them of what that money went to.”

 

kltatera@syr.edu

 

 

Published on September 26, 2013 at 1:55 am

Contact Kelly: kltatera@syr.edu