Empty Bowls celebrates 25 years at the Frontenac Heritage Festival

Feb 04, 2015

Empty Bowls, the quarter-century-old fundraiser that started up in Michigan as a grass roots organization, was founded with the goal of fighting hunger through the sale of hand-made pottery bowls. It has been uniting potters in communities all over the world since 1990.

Begun by Michigan teacher John Hartom and his wife Lisa Blackburn as a way to support a local food drive, the group made pottery bowls and served a soup and bread lunch in them. Following the meal, diners were invited to keep the bowl for a donation.

Since its inception the Empty Bowls event continues to take place today all across Canada and the US as well as in 12 other countries around the world. To date it has raised millions of dollars for various hunger fighting organizations.

In 2002 Perth area potter Jackie Seaton brought Empty Bowls to eastern Ontario. He is remembered here with the words he used to describe what Empty Bowls meant to him. “Food scarcity means not just a scarcity of calories but a scarcity of the life-affirming joys that good food provides. Empty Bowls reminds us all never to take food for granted but to celebrate and share what we have.”

Local potters will be carrying on the Empty Bowls tradition at this year’s Frontenac Heritage Festival at two separate locations. In Arden, potters Joanne Pickett, Aileen Merriam, Diane Nicholson and myself (Julie Druker), will have a wide variety of handmade bowls available for a $15 donation. Soup and chili will be provided by volunteers from the local community. The Arden event will take place at the Kennebec hall on Sat. Feb. 14 from 10:30am –4pm.

In Sharbot Lake, potter Johanna Jansen will be heading up the Empty Bowls event there and will be offering up bowls created by herself and Long Lake potters Tracy Bamford and Sharon Matthews of Water's Edge Pottery, and Dawn Burnham of Maberly. The Sharbot Lake Empty Bowls fundraiser will be included as part of the Frontenac Heritage Festival craft show, which takes place at St. James Major Catholic hall on Sat. Feb. 14 from 10am - 4pm and on Sunday, February 15 from noon until 4pm. All of the proceeds from both events will be donated to the North Frontenac Food Bank located in Sharbot Lake.