‘Empty Bowls’ in Van Buren to support Back Pack program

story and photo by Marla Cantrell
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A simple bowl of soup for $15 might not sound like a bargain. But what if the bowl was more like art than a piece of dinnerware? Not enough? OK. So what if you got to keep the bowl? Better? And what if that $15 helped you help someone else?

That’s where the bargain comes in.

On Feb. 11, the Van Buren High School Art Club will stack its 300 handcrafted bowls, make sure the gallons of soup are ready, and open the school’s doors (5:30 to 7:30 p.m.; tickets need to be purchased before the event) for the Empty Bowls event.

It’s not a big meal – the soup is the only course — and that’s kind of the point. The bowls the diners take home are to remind them that there are empty bowls and empty stomachs every day, all over the world. The money earned from the Empty Bowls project will be given to the Community Services Clearinghouse for its Meals for Kids Backpack Program, which supplies certain area students with food for the weekend on every Friday of the school year.

The school picked the clearinghouse after hearing a recommendation from Jackie Krutsch, executive director of the Van Buren Chamber of Commerce, during its first in-service meeting. Soon after, Rick Foti, Clearinghouse executive director, met with students from the art club to explain the program.

The kids were hooked. Foti was thrilled, and a great partnership was forged.

Since that time, the high school students have worked with a committee of community leaders to get the project ready. Many of those leaders, including members of Leadership Crawford County and members of the chamber, have come by the school to make a bowl of their own. They’ve also gotten to know the students.

Art teacher Robert Lowe said the project is doing exactly what he hoped it would.

“At the first of the year we started a school-wide initiative to get the students more connected to community leaders and make their education more relevant,” Lowe said.

More than 100 art students started making the bowls last fall. Each is an individual work of art; the students were given free rein during the design process. There are about 250 bowls ready for the dinner, and by Feb. 11, there will be 300.

Sue Robinson, Clearinghouse community relations coordinator, said the organization helps 2,458 students in a seven county area. Only 836 of those who receive food from the backpack program live in Fort Smith, where the clearinghouse is based. Another 254 are in Van Buren.

“The cost is $3 to $4 per meal,” Robison said. “That’s roughly $890 (in Van Buren) every Friday afternoon of the school year.”
Robinson praised Van Buren for what it’s doing for the clearinghouse. In December, Heritage United Methodist Church, which is less than a half mile from the high school, put on performances of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” raising $4,000 for the Meals for Kids Program.

Lowe thinks the clearinghouse is the perfect recipient for this event. He said he can’t take credit for the idea, although he did see it work in Fayetteville, when he donated bowls to a similar event.

The Empty Bowl project is the brainchild of a Michigan teacher who initiated the program during the 1990-91 school year to raise money for a food drive. It’s now grown into an international project to help feed the hungry.

The other art instructors at Van Buren High have been working to get the project ready. The band is practicing to perform during the dinner, and consumer science teacher Britney Ballew is gathering the ingredients to make a monumental amount of soup. And of course, the community leaders are busy getting the word out. It takes a community, Lowe said, to pull off an event as big as this one.

The students are learning, first about pottery, and then about what it means when those who have give to those who don’t.

“We shouldn’t take what we have for granted,” said Art Club president Carlee Davis. “We should humble ourselves and learn from this experience. Other people need things we throw away on a regular basis.”