GAMBIER — Eighteen years ago, a high school art teacher in Michigan started a project where students made clay bowls for a fundraising dinner to combat hunger. Since then, “Empty Bowls” projects have spread all over the country.
Gambier saw its first such fundraiser last fall, and the event returns this year in tandem with the Kenyon Review Literary Festival, which has the Writer’s Harvest for the same purpose. The two events will run back-to-back in the newly renovated Peirce Hall on Friday, Nov. 7.
Abby Serfass, associate programs director at The Kenyon Review, said she’s thrilled the two programs can work together.
“It brings students in different areas of the arts together to increase awareness of a serious problem,” Serfass said.
Funds raised by both events will go through Food for the Hungry, which will distribute raised money and canned foods to Interchurch Social Services and The Salvation Army.
Robin Nordmoe, pottery instructor at the Kenyon Craft Center, first proposed the idea of doing an Empty Bowls project at the craft center, which is located on Gaskin Avenue on the north side of the Kenyon College campus. The project takes over the craft center for one day and turns it into a bowl-making workshop for students and community members.
Last year’s project saw the creation of around 100 bowls, which raised over $1,100 at the subsequent soup dinner and auction. This year, Nordmoe said, she talked with Karl Stevens, the Kenyon chaplain and assistant rector of Harcourt Parish Church, in order to connect to the writer’s harvest event.
Carol Rubenstein, wife of Food for the Hungry’s Executive Director Micah Rubenstein, is in her 25th year as a glass instructor at the craft center, and has been closely involved with both organizations during that time.
“We had been looking for ways over the years to get Kenyon more active,” Rubenstein said, “because the table we set up at the Village Market in Gambier on the day of the Food for the Hungry drive every year has always done well.”
She added that Mount Vernon Nazarene University adjunct professor Paul Linhares will have some students work on projects to donate to the Empty Bowls event. Linhares and his wife, Jill, have been heavily involved in Food for the Hungry charitable projects in the past, such as Fredericktown’s Christmas Walk, as have Dr. Brad Smith and his wife, Jenny, according to Rubenstein, who said both couples plan to attend the Empty Bowls soup dinner.
Students were enthusiastic about participating.
“It’s a very fun way to do community service,” said Alex Lastowski.
Diana Willow said she and her friends were doing the community service as part of Greek Week for society pledges. In addition to making a bowl, Willow made a small animal out of clay while she was waiting to use the form Christina Bogasky was working with.
“I find it very therapeutic,” said New Zealand student Laura Yakas, who was busy rolling clay to make a decorative rim for her pinch pot.
Yakas is in her second year of participation in the event.
Community members were present, too. Bill Jones, an experienced potter who is editor of Pottery Making Illustrated magazine, has lived in Gambier for four years.
“I’ve reported on Empty Bowl projects, but never had a chance to participate in one before,” Jones said as he manipulated a handful of clay on a potter’s wheel.
Jones, who learned his craft from a Japanese instructor from a family with a long and honorable tradition in pottery, got away from it at one point in his life, but said he has been happily pursuing the craft again for the last 10 years.
The paired events will take place Friday, Nov. 7, at Peirce Hall on the south side of the Kenyon College campus in Gambier. The Empty Bowls soup dinner, which has a separate admission charge, starts at 5:30 p.m., and includes a silent auction for the bowls. The Writer’s Harvest program will start at 8 p.m., beginning with featured reader Lynne Thompson and continuing with readings by students and community members who sign up in advance.
Serfass said Writer’s Harvest will still be taking canned good donations for entrance to the Writer’s Harvest, although cash donations are encouraged, because Food for the Hungry receives $10 worth of food for every dollar spent at the Central Ohio Food Bank. Rubenstein pointed out that this was a community-driven fundraiser, and that the funds raised in Gambier would stay within the community, just as other towns in Knox County raise money to fight hunger in their own areas. A full events schedule for the Kenyon Review Literary Festival will be published in coming weeks.