The Empty Bowls Project is in its third year here in Brownwood and each year has grown exponentially over the preceding one according to Good Samaritan Ministries staff.
When the project began in Brownwood in 2010, there were just more than 300 bowls available. In 2011, there were 400 and this year there will be around 1,000.
“It’s incredible to see the growth from year to year of this event,” said Angelia Bostick, Executive Director of Good Samaritan Ministries. “We’ve increased the number of bowls available each year because the number of people excited about the project and wanting to participate continues to increase.”
This year, perhaps more than any other, the Empty Bowls Project has been a community collaborative effort in so many ways!
Of course, as usual, GSM works closely with Howard Payne University to make this event happen.
“We absolutely could not put on an event of this nature without the partnership of Howard Payne University,” Bostick said. “They provide most of the footwork and volunteers the day of the event and are absolutely indispensable when it comes to planning and organizing.”
New to the project this year, GSM opened its doors to sponsor bowl painting parties, allowing members of the community to participate in a way they had not been able to before.
“We were a little unsure of how the parties would work or if people would even be interested in painting bowls, but because we had so many bowls to paint this year we wanted to give the community another opportunity to participate,” Bostick said.
And participate they did. So much so, in fact, that the staff at GSM was turning away groups that wanted to book parties because there weren’t enough bowls to paint.
“It was incredible to see the response to the painting parties,” Bostick said. “There were days we were hosting two and three separate parties a night and we often had to blend several different groups together.”
Among the groups that helped paint bowls at Good Samaritan were the May and Coggin Elementary Schools faculty, COFFE Homeschool group, HPU students, TSTC students and faculty, Sweet Peas, Sunday School classes, groups of friends, Head Start faculty, Brown County Republican Women, several youth groups and so many more.
In addition to painting bowls in-house, bowls were sent to several schools and nursing facilities whose students and residents also painted bowls for the event. Some of these included Howard Payne University, Brownwood High School, Brownwood Middle School, Early High School, Bangs High School, Bangs Nursing Home, CARE Nursing Center, The Chatfield, Vicksburg and Songbird Lodge.
Most of our bowls have been fired by Debbie Morelock who used her own personal kiln and Robin Nance who was able to use the kilns at First Baptist Church Brownwood. These two volunteers worked through a large portion of the bowls ten to twenty a day on their own time.
“We have been so blessed to have Debbie and Robin work so diligently to fire these bowls for us,” Bostick said. “And we are so excited this year to add Kohler as a partner for our Empty Bowls Project, firing close to 300 bowls for us.”
Bostick said they look forward to utilizing the service Kohler offered for the project in the coming years.
There will also be some bowls created from scratch by local artist Liz Colglazier.
Students at various elementary school campuses are creating placemats for the event and, of course, we could not fill the empty bowls without soup and beans from area restaurants. All the soup and beans are being donated from local restaurants and churches.
“This is one of our favorite events because it does become such a community-wide project bringing people of all ages and backgrounds together to raise awareness of local hunger,” Bostick said. “We could not host the event without bowls and we could never get all of the bowls painted without this incredible response from our community.”
To cover the cost of the event including bowls and paint, GSM procured sponsors for this year’s event so that all of the money raised at the event will go directly to feeding the hungry.
“At the heart of the Empty Bowls Project is hunger awareness,” said Bostick. “So we want to make sure that the donations that people make at the door or through pre-sale tickets or VIP tables, go right back into feeding hungry people.”
This year’s five sponsors make sure that will happen: Big Country Ford Lincoln, Landmark Life, Texas Bank, TXU Energy and Wal-Mart.
“Originally, the Empty Bowls Project was designed for potters and other artists to create original bowls for the event, but we just don’t have a large community of potters in Brownwood,” Bostick said. “That’s why we took the opportunity to purchase bisque bowls and paint so more people can be involved.”
She said having sponsors was vital to the continued growth and expansion of the project.
“We are so thankful to our sponsors for allowing us to expand the project, allow more people to be involved and just being so willing to be a part of this ministry and this event,” Bostick said.
Ninety percent of the money raised from the Empty Bowls Project will go to GSM’s hunger ministries to fight hunger locally while ten percent will be tithed to Food for the Hungry, an international organization that provides hunger relief to impoverished families of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Empty Bowls Project will be held from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 29 at the Brownwood Coliseum. For a donation only, choose a hand-painted bowl and enjoy a simple meal of soup or beans, bread and water. It’s not an all-you-can-eat soup buffet. You may leave a little hungry. That’s kind of the point. At the end of the meal, take your bowl home with you to serve as a reminder of those in your own community and around the world who have empty bowls and empty stomachs.
Pictured at top are fired bowls. Below are glazed bowls and a church group participating in a painting party.
Bowls glazed and ready for the kiln.
A group from Salt Creek enjoying a painting party.
