Empty Bowls Project at MCC to Benefit Foodshare October 31

MANCHESTER, Conn. (October 19, 2015) – Students, faculty, staff and other volunteers at Manchester Community College are preparing for the 18th annual Empty Bowls Project, which MCC is hosting on Saturday, October 31, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the college’s Culinary Arts Center. Admission is $15.

For several weeks a team of volunteers from across the college has been organizing and putting out the call for donated soups, bowls and other necessary items to make the unique annual fundraiser the success it is. In the coming days, the volunteers will pick up 200 gallons of soup from 44 area restaurants, schools, hospitals and contract food venders located in the communities of Ellington, Glastonbury, Manchester, South Windsor, East Hartford, Wethersfield, Old Wethersfield and West Hartford. Bowls are donated by a variety of sources, including South Windsor-based John Macomber, founder of Greenleaf Pottery, an artisan with 40 years’ experience and a longtime contributor of handcrafted stoneware to the MCC-hosted event.

The Empty Bowls project offers guests the unique opportunity to not only partake in a hearty meal featuring soups, breads, desserts and beverages served by MCC’s Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts students, but to select and bring home a soup bowl, which is intended to remind people of all the empty bowls in food-insecure households across the region and around the world.

The preparation is a unique service-learning experience, according to Lucy Anne Hurston, chair of MCC’s sociology and sign language department, where a core group of volunteers preparing for the event come from.

She noted that the Empty Bowls Project dovetails with her requirement that students donate time to a nonprofit that serves people coping with such crises as hunger and homelessness. “As a sociologist I feel an obligation to prepare my students with the necessary skills to reach out to the social world around them in preparation for installing change,” Hurston said. “Of most import are issues of human rights: food, clothing, and safe and affordable housing.”

During the event, the bowl is filled with each guest’s choice of soup, as a reminder that many people aren’t able to provide themselves with even a simple meal such as soup or rice. All proceeds from the Empty Bowls Project benefit Foodshare of Greater Hartford. In addition, take-home quarts of soup will be available for sale at the cost of $7 each, or four for $25.

Foodshare is the regional food bank for Hartford and Tolland counties, with a mission of combating hunger for an estimated 137,000 people, including 42,000 children, in the Greater Hartford community.

Fundraisers like the Empty Bowls Project are more crucial than ever, given that the food bank estimates it is able to address only about one-third of the community’s food insecurity problem.

“Last year alone, MCC’s Empty Bowls Project successfully raised more than $16,000 to benefit Foodshare,” said James Arena-DeRosa, President and CEO of Foodshare. “We are so grateful for all those involved – donors, volunteers, sponsors and guests – whose efforts not only provide financial support to help our hungry neighbors, but also shine a light on the larger issue by advocating for lasting solutions to hunger here at home.”

According to Foodshare, about one in eight people in the agency’s service area – Hartford and Tolland counties – regularly deal with hunger issues. Last year, Foodshare helped provide food for more than 12 million meals by distributing canned goods, fresh produce and other edible goods to food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and community kitchens.