Column: Don't forget to fill your empty bowl Friday night
Submitted by Brett Fisher on Fri, 12/07/2018 - 4:11pm
I'll be eating soup for dinner tonight.
But unlike others in the community who struggle every day with hunger, my bowl won't be empty.
If you haven't decided what's for dinner at your table this evening, then consider a hearty selection of soups and other delectables at the annual Project Empty Bowls event in Carson City, held this year from 4-8 p.m. inside the Carson Mall.
All year long, community artists and volunteers work to create enough ceramic bowls to help meet the needs of hungry people in our area.
This year, more than a thousand bowls have been created for Friday night's fundraiser and each are available for a donation.
Proceeds go to help feed the hungry in our area through Friends In Service Helping (FISH), a home-grown social services non-profit that supports more than 8,000 people in the greater Carson City area each year.
In exchange for a $15 donation, guests can select an empty bowl of their choice from the hundreds on display. Their donation entitles them to a delicious all-you-can meal prepared by 20 local restaurants.
The ceramic bowls, which guests get to take home as a keepsake, serve as a reminder that there are empty bowls in our own community.
I remember my first introduction to Project Empty Bowls two and a half years ago. I let my god-son, Skylar, tag along with me on assignment to the Third and Curry Farmer's Market, where we found Project Empty Bowls and volunteers painting plain ceramic bowls.
Skylar, the artist that he is, jumped right in to paint. When he was done, he seemed a bit disappointed that he couldn't take his bowl with him. I explained that the bowl, which is empty now, will contain food to feed someone who is hungry and going without anything to eat.
Skylar understood and handed the bowl to a volunteer.
Six months later, I'm covering the Project Empty Bowls, which immediately followed the Silver and Snowflakes Festival and Capitol tree lighting ceremony downtown.
As I'm carefully focusing my camera on some of the beautiful bowls waiting for their donors, I spy a bowl that looked familiar.
After a long moment of trying to figure out where I'd seen it before, I realized that it was Skylar's bowl.
I made a bee-line to it and picked it up before anyone else saw it. I looked under the bowl, and sure enough, there was his name printed on the bottom.
I fished through my wallet looking for cash to pay for the bowl, but starving artists and journalists don't typically have much lettuce on them anyway.
Naturally, I was short on funds.
I approached the volunteers and asked if they could hold it for me, so I could run home and get the balance to pay for it.
They agreed, and a half-hour later, I was back and holding that precious little bowl that my god-son wanted so bad to keep.
On Christmas, underneath the tree, there were the usual toys for him. But also something else: a shiny, colorful little ceramic bowl that reminded him what Christmas is all about.
He asked me if the bowl helped to feed anyone. I looked at my god-son, a serious and compassionate little, old soul, and smiled.
"More than you know."
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