Art students create handmade ceramic bowls for Empty Bowls project
When it comes to serving the community, students and staff do all they can. That’s why art students at Bellefonte Area High School are participating again in the Empty Bowls project and hosting a charity dinner in the spring to show off their work, serve guests and help raise money for a good cause.
The Empty Bowls charity dinner will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. March 29 at the high school cafeteria. A $15 fee gets patrons a bowl of soup in a ceramic bowl made by students and staff. The dinner also includes bread, dessert, beverages, live entertainment and raffles – and patrons get to keep the handmade bowl. Vegan and vegetarian options will also be available. If guests don’t want to purchase a bowl, then they can still attend the dinner for $7. Attendance is on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Art teacher Heather Fry said the mission this year is to raise money for the YMCA of Centre County’s Backpack Weekend Food program, which benefits students in the Bellefonte Area School District. Eligible students are able to take home a backpack full of food on the weekends. By Monday, they can return the bookbag at their school for volunteers to fill up again later in the week.
“It’s about art and community coming together to benefit a greater good,” Fry said.
In the past, the event has benefited the Centre County Women’s Resource Center (now known as Centre Safe) and the food bank in Bellefonte. The campaign started in 2016 with the art club and 200 bowls. Now, 300 bowls are being created. The bowls, thrown and handmade by students and staff, are dishwasher-, food- and microwave-safe.
And while the mission is to help a community organization, the students and staff also have a goal to provide people with quality work that is skillfully made and aesthetically pleasing. Students and staff will continue to make bowls until the event by throwing the clay on a wheel, or hand-building them; firing to a bisque; glazing it; and firing the bowls a second time for the finished product.