PUTNEY — At the start of her advanced ceramics class each semester, Brattleboro Union High School art teacher Liz deNiord asks her students, “What do you know about the Empty Bowls dinner?”
The students respond, “It raises money for food,” “The money goes to feed people,” “It's a fun night where they serve lots of food from gorgeous bowls!”
And so begins an assignment that teaches students not only how to design and create a functional and artistic bowl out of clay, but also how to help address the impact of the deepening economic recession on their own community.
After spending weeks working on their creations, DeNiord says, “It will not be easy to give away something they have worked so hard on.” But in the end, she knows that “proudly, they will each set one bowl aside that they will donate to the Empty Bowls dinner.”
For the eighth consecutive year, Brattleboro Clayworks and Landmark College are working together to address this growing need by sponsoring the Empty Bowls Dinner to benefit the Brattleboro Area Drop-in Center, a day shelter providing an emergency food shelf, overnight shelter, and other support services.
This year's Empty Bowls dinner will take place on Sunday, Oct. 9, with two seatings at 5 and 6:30 p.m. in the dining hall at Landmark College in Putney.
For a $25 donation to the Brattleboro Area Drop-In Center, guests will be served a simple, nutritious meal of soup, bread, cheese, apples, beverage and dessert, and will enjoy live music.
Afterwards, participants are invited to keep the unique, handcrafted bowl they have chosen as a reminder that while they may have enough to eat, many go hungry each day in our community and throughout the world.
The Drop-In Center has an increased need for support this year due to the people in the community experiencing losses from the flood. The dinner is made possible entirely through donations from local businesses and restaurants, and countless hours of volunteer labor.
For each of the past seven years, dozens of young people have been a key ingredient in making the dinner happen.
Putney School ceramics teacher Naomi Lindenfeld assigns each of her students to make at least one bowl that they will donate to the dinner.
The assignment, she says, “is a way to incorporate raising consciousness about issues happening in our own community.” It also teaches her students “an important lesson - that one can use one's art to support a worthy cause.”
Landmark College ceramics teacher Christie Herbert introduces her students to the Asian tradition of the “unknown potter,” in which beauty is found in everyday utilitarian objects created by nameless and unknown craftspeople, and expands on it, having her students make “their own humble offering to a collective effort to fill bowls for the anonymous hungry.”
When the big day arrives, high school students from across the region are the primary force in action. On the eve of the dinner, they can be found in the large kitchen at Landmark College, washing and sorting hundreds of bowls. Hours before the dinner, they get to work making signs, setting tables, washing apples, and cutting cheese and bread.
And when hundreds of diners arrive for the first seating, again it is in large part, high school students ladling out the soup, replenishing supplies and keeping the tables clean and prepared.
“It's a fast-paced environment,” says Landmark College professor Ruth Wilmot, who supervises the volunteers, “and the students enjoy being part of a big event and feeling they are doing something concrete to support those who need help in our community.”
Every year, she says, “numerous students ask if they can participate again. I think they feel it is an honor to be part of this community event.”