OXFORD, Ohio — For the next several weeks, day after day, you’ll find at least half a dozen students hard at work In the basement of Miami University’s Hiestand Hall.
They spent the past month putting together hundreds of ceramic bowls and with hundreds more to make, that’s what it will take to ensure Oxford’s Empty Bowls will have plenty to serve on Nov. 12.
The annual event, which has gone virtual for the past two years, typically brings in hundreds of guests, raising a few thousand for Talawanda Oxford Pantry and Social Services and other local organizations working to provide food access to those who need it.
Over the past 20 years, Connie Malone, the co-organizer, said it’s brought in more than $126,000 and seems to grow bigger as the tradition goes on.
Oxford Empty Bowls 2019, courtesy Connie Malone
“It gives students a chance to showcase their talent,” she said. “It certainly benefits us because for our lunch and guests we have these marvelous bowls that they get to choose from.”
The original Empty Bowls began in 1990, when a Michigan art teacher John Hartom organized a charitable event with co-founder Lisa Blackburn, allowing his students to make ceramic bowls and selling them as serving pieces for a fundraising meal of soup and bread.
In the years since, his original idea has spread across the country and even gone international, but each community that puts it on is required to keep their funds local, supporting hunger relief in their own neighborhoods.
“It celebrates the art in the spirit of community service, which is the original intent of the event,” she said.
Not all of Oxford’s bowls come from Miami University artists, but ceramics students like Henry Hachtel are a big part of making the event possible.
“This is like the kind of like community engagement and service stuff that I’m really interested in,” he said. “It’s really nice to know that things that I enjoy doing and things that other people in the community enjoy doing are going to be able to help people.”
He, along with dozens of other students, took part in the university’s Bowl-a-Thon event in late September, which produced more than 160 bowls for the event.
“It’s more than I was expecting,” he said.
With just about a year’s experience at the wheel, Hachtel said he’s still perfecting the art of bowl-making but he appreciates the variety of products he and his classmates have been making and hopes Empty Bowls guests will too.
Hachtel works on a bowl for the event.
“It’s a very human thing being able to see the variance in all of the bowls and knowing there were a lot of different hands that sat down to make these,” he said.
Besides making the bowls, Hachtel said he plans to volunteer at the Empty Bowls event as well, hopeful to see all his handiwork get put to use before his eyes.
“There’s always a charm to handmade things like knowing that there are people that care enough about the event and its purposes to put physical effort into making bowls,” he said.
The event will take place on Nov. 12 at the Oxford Community Center from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Each meal will be $15.
