About Empty Bowls

Empty Bowls is an international grassroots movement created by The Imagine Render Group to fight hunger. The basic premise is simple. Ceramic artists, other craftsmen, educators and others cooperate with the community to make handmade bowls.

As a grassroots work in autumn 2010, the Round Rock Empty Bowl Festival was a community event for the school district, visual art department, service center, guardian, businessman in the true sense of the painting organizer. It is a model service learning partnership for students. In an empty bowl model, artists create pottery bowls and donate, then provide meals at community events. Guests can choose to use a unique bowl and remind all empty bowls around the world. Minimal recommended donation will be offered to guests in exchange for meals and balls. 100% of revenue is used by local hunger protection group, in our case by Cobblestone Service Center. Our historically held event at the first unified methodist church in Round Rock has grown and moved to the campus of Round Rock's Cedarridge high school in 2013. I thank Cedar Ridge High School for allowing our community to gather at their campus!

From the top, from left to right: Volunteers from various balls and soup service lines from the 2012 festival

Freerice is a free online game and learning tool that allows players to educate and select more games while fighting the rice and fighting the world's hunger. Donate one rice to the World Food Program for each question the user correctly answered

Educator Rachael Brunson's website provides extensive information and links on service learning and hunger issues.

When the event began to spread, John and Lisa were generally able to track the places people heard about empty bowl projects and how they led to a particular community event. For example, in 1997, John and Lisa made a speech at the National Youth Leaders' Council National Service Learning Conference, held in Detroit, Michigan. More than 1000 participants were invited to an empty bowl luncheon. Participation in this event was a great stimulus for Alice Del Vecchio to have an empty bowl at Slippery Rock University. Slippery Rock students and teachers celebrate the 15th anniversary sky bowl event (Del Vecchio, 2010)

From the pilot's sky bowl event, Lisa and John cooperated to grow empty balls. To say the least, the first year is very challenging. Lisa and John are dedicated to a career as a full-time teacher. Following the success of the pilot event, they strove to make every effort to turn empty balls into national projects. So far, Lisa and John are married, are full-time educated, and spend the rest of the time spending building an empty bowl project. "John and I are working." John and Lisa did their utmost. They came up with ideas, made a systematic and systematic proposal on how to start, talked at the annual meeting, discussed with people who called or sent e-mails, and cooperated with community groups did.

Over the past five years I have helped Adriana and Neena neighbors make empty bowls in a shared courtyard in Oakland, California. The basic purpose of Empty Bowls is to collect funds for our local food bank, the Alameda County Community Food Bank. We were very successful in this field (this year we gathered over $ 10,000!), The sky bowl is more than just collecting checks and counting the total. Empty bowls build and strengthen our community, support our local artists, celebrate delicious dishes and beautiful pottery, and educate people about hunger and poverty