Listen: The problem of hunger in our community has no simple solution. Of course, donations of food, money, and time are key ingredients, but there is a component of the answer that must come before those things — awareness and involvement.
Empty Bowls raises funds for food and hunger programs operating in Milwaukee ( read about their history here), and they do that by pulling folks from around the community into their process. At an annual event, they sell bowls filled with soup to the public. The bowls are made by anybody ranging from a professional artist to school students to business people and the soup is donated from restaurants around Milwaukee. Rather than being detached from the cause, people actually get their hands dirty.
Hands getting dirty — that’s just what I witnessed at Murray Hill Pottery Works on the East Side. A few weeks back, I dropped in for their “glaze-a-thon” and met a bunch of wonderful volunteers, including Jean Wells, an Empty Bowls leader, and Teri Regano, a friend of the station and Empty Bowls volunteer (scroll to the bottom for the audio piece).
If you’d like to learn more about Empty Bowls, check out their website . They still have volunteer opportunities open, so sign up today ! And perhaps most importantly, attend the Empty Bowls event on Saturday, October 9th from 10:30am to 2:00pm at the MATC Oak Creek Campus! I know I’ll be there.
Produced by: Adam Carr