February 22, 2007

Kalamazoo College and Loaves & Fishes Will Fill Empty Bowls

KALAMAZOO, MI—Kalamazoo College and Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes, together with the many willing hands of bowl-makers and soup chefs throughout greater Kalamazoo, are coming together to fill the empty bowls of the hungry in our community while raising awareness about hunger worldwide. The second annual Empty Bowls Fundraiser will take place from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 10, at Woodward Elementary School, 606 Stuart Avenue in Kalamazoo. Tickets are $15 and for that entry fee, each person will receive a ceramic bowl and a meal of soup and bread. Student tickets are $10 and children under 6 enter free. The face value of the tickets is not tax-deductible, but additional donations at the door are appreciated. All proceeds from the event will be used by Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes to assist the hungry in our community.

Empty Bowls is a nation-wide project to provide support for food banks, soup kitchens, and other organizations that fight hunger. Here in Kalamazoo, Empty Bowls is a critical fundraiser for Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes that raises awareness about hunger and how it can be alleviated, provides a meal of soup and bread, and a keepsake bowl as a reminder of hunger in our community and around the world. Bowls have been made for this event by Kalamazoo College faculty and students, Jeter’s Leaders participants, students at the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center, clients of Ministry with Community, and Woodward Elementary students. Financial support for art supplies comes from Kalamazoo Community Foundation. Soup is provided by Food Dance Café, Bravo’s, Panera Bread Co., Zazio’s, Black Swan, The Radisson Catering Co., Burdick’s, Francois Macaroni Factory, Z Café, and Sodexho. All attendees will also receive a complimentary $5 gift certificate from The Millennium Restaurant Group for use at a Millennium restaurant. Coordination of the entire Empty Bowls project is the responsibility of Kalamazoo College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute of Service-Learning.

“Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes is the primary source of emergency food support in Kalamazoo County,” says Leslie Lutz, development coordinator at KLF. “Each month, thousands of our neighbors turn to KLF for help in stretching their resources. As the poverty rate in the city of Kalamazoo grows past 30 percent, KLF sees more people making hard choices. Do you mail the utility check, or do you buy groceries? Do you refill your medical prescription, or do you buy groceries? At the end of the day, many of our neighbors are facing empty bowls.”

In Kalamazoo, Empty Bowls is a three-part event. It is an important source of funding for KLF to increase emergency food resources available in Kalamazoo County. The money collected helps KLF to access low- and no-cost food, ensure the food’s efficient distribution to 21 community pantries, and provide meal resources for Ministry with Community and the YWCA. At the same time, Empty Bowls is a powerful educational tool, allowing KLF and Kalamazoo College to raise awareness of local hunger issues. Finally, Empty Bowls is a “friend-raiser.” The event brings together diverse groups to help KLF achieve its mission and builds new partnerships in the fight against hunger.

Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor Sarah Lindley teaches “Ceramics I: Handbuilding.” Her students hold bowl-making workshops with people across the community in the months leading up to the Empty Bowls dinner. The many amateur artists who attend these workshops donate their bowls to the people who attend the March 10 event at Woodward Elementary. Leah Blazek, who coordinates the project at Kalamazoo College, is also organizing a silent auction, in which Kalamazoo-area professional artists donate pieces whose purchase will raise additional funds for KLF. Between 10 and 20 bowls will be available for bids. These bowls may be viewed during the March 2 Kalamazoo Art Hop from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Ministry with Community, 440 N. Kalamazoo Mall.

“Much more than a fundraiser, Empty Bowls demonstrates the power of art and the joy of community building, as the people of Kalamazoo embrace a simple idea and find unique ways to participate,” says Lindley. “Empty Bowls aims not just to raise money, but to raise awareness of hunger around the world and in Kalamazoo, and to engage people in coming to terms with its causes.”

Kalamazoo’s first Empty Bowls event, in 2006, was the Senior Individualized Project Kalamazoo College graduate Breigh Montgomery, who coordinated the entire event, working with two service-learning courses, under the direction of Sarah Lindley and classical studies professor Anne Haeckl. The latter’s classics course, “Cool Cities: Carthage and Kalamazoo,” researched hunger in the past and present; 16 students in “Ceramics: Handbuilding I” assisted by teaching 12 ceramics workshops in which more than 125 homeless people, Kalamazoo College students, and public school kids made more than 500 bowls. At the first Kalamazoo Empty Bowls event in 2006, more than 450 people attended, and more $5000 was raised for Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes and Heifer International.

A Fellowship in Learning: At Home in the World, Kalamazoo College is a national liberal arts college and the creator and home of the Kalamazoo Plan. By emphasizing scholarship, civic engagement, and foreign study, Kalamazoo College cultivates a fellowship in learning among students, faculty, and a community of scholars throughout the world. Its students shape elements of the Kalamazoo Plan—rigorous academics, career internships, study abroad, service-learning, and a senior individualized project—into an educational experience that provides insight into the meaning of the kind of citizenship that is at home in the world.