Empty Bowls, a benefit for the Auburn Food Bank, returns Friday

Published 11:53 am Wednesday, April 29, 2015

It’s a simple yet effective recipe.

First you fetch some potters, craftspeople, teachers and others, then mix ’em up really good with people throughout the community who think making handcrafted bowls for a good cause is the greatest thing since spice racks.

Then invite your guests to a simple meal of bread and soup in these very bowls.

Soup, organizers say, that is bound to warm the stomach – and the soul.

In exchange for a $15 cash donation, you ask your guests to keep a bowl, a reminder of all the empty bowls in the world. Then you donate all the money you’ve raised to a local organization working to end hunger and food insecurity.

In Auburn, that organization is the Auburn Food Bank.

For five years now, local artists, businesses and restaurants have made the Empty Bowls fundraiser part of Auburn’s spring landscape.

This year’s shindig starts at 11 a.m. and ends 2 p.m. Friday at Grace Community Church, 1320 Auburn Way S.

Attendees may buy a soup bowl handmade by students and professional potters for that minimum donation. Customers have a choice of soup from among those donated by local restaurants and schools.

All told, the donation gets a body a handcrafted pottery or wood bowl to keep. All food – soup, bread, cookies and beverages – is donated by local restaurants and the culinary arts students in Auburn’s high schools.

Potters and woodworkers donate bowls, and the ceramics department at Green River College holds an annual “bowl throw” to supply bowls for the event.

“It’s a great opportunity to put our own hearts into the cause and actually have bowls that come from our imagination, and just be able to bless the people who could use a little boost,” said one GRC student. “The economy has been hard for everyone, and it takes a community to take care of each other.”