(no subject)

[morgaina]

We didn't have class today, so rather than spending time at my desk keeping up with paperwork, like a fool I volunteered to teach a class to teachers at the regional education conference.
I've taught in previous years too, but this time I (attempted to) taught teachers how to make nice handbuilt ceramic bowls to then teach their students in hopes of getting more Empty Bowls projects happening regionally http://www.emptybowls.net/.

Two lovely little ladies from a Catholic school began to make plans for an Empty Bowls during Lent, if that happens I will be so happy.
This is one of my favorite charities and such a good thing for students to take part in. I have my students do bowls for two of these a year.

My students are 95% from families living in poverty and have always been on the receiving end of charity, being on the giving end when we make bowls is a real stretch for some, I have seen the looks on their faces go from outrage, to some confusion, to understanding with this project. After I explained about Empty Bowls one particularly belligerent kid, screamed that he couldn't afford to give donations, then after the Empty Bowls event he said amazed: "You mean because of the bowls I made poor people will get $60?"
A moment of enlightenment.

Comments

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

I really like doing this fund raiser.
Handmade ceramic bowls are solicited from a variety of sources, High school kids, professional potters, first time attempts at clay, College Art Majors, etc. Someone volunteers to be in charge of the soup.

On the day of the event people come in select a bowl from the many, varied bowls set out, get a simple meal of soup in their bowl and a piece of bread. Everyone pays the same, around $10. and gets to take the bowl home with them. Interestingly, the children's lumpy pots are chosen about as fast as the professional potter bowls.


100% of the funds taken in are given to hunger organizations of the organizer's choice, local or international. Last year after the Empty Bowls my Mundane Potter's Guild split the money between the local Food Bank and Oxfam.

One of the reasons I love this is because it is the best *feeling* place to be when people are choosing pots and sitting at tables with people they don't know to eat their soup. It builds and reinforces 'community'. We usually have live music, the high school kids make collage posters that illustrate hunger in the world, and the pottery choice is magnificent.

It's not unusual for people to donate considerably more than their $10. and say "Can I help next year?"

I could see something like this done at a large SCA event too on a Friday night.

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

I should also mention people do this all over the country. Earc (who is on my friends list) has worked on an Empty Bowls project at his college and one of the people who attended my class yesterday had been to one in Anchorage.
At our Empty Bowls we had a lady drive down from Spokane to Moscow (1 & 1/2 hrs each way) to participate because there wasn't an Empty Bowls event in Spokane at that time and she had been going to them where she had lived previously.

[freewaydiva.livejournal.com]

That? Is super keen!

goes to look for local opportunities