By Jacob Wessels
It is a LEAP Center tradition to assist the Wynne Home Arts and Visitor Center with their Empty Bowls fundraiser each year–and it is a tradition that dates back to 2008, when a LEAP intern initiated the project. This year, some 250 people stopped by the Wynne Home for a community lunch while raising approximately $7,000 for Meals on Wheels.
For our part, almost 20 LEAP students–under the direction of Wynne Home Program Coordinator Angela Robinson–volunteered to help ensure a positive guest experience.
This involved greeting guests as they arrived, inviting them to select a unique ceramic bowl, accepting payment, and directing them to the various food stations, which featured culinary options by HEB, Sam’s Table, Meals on Wheels, Five Loaves Deli, Huntsville High School Culinary Team, and City Hall Cafe.
It’s a great way for the community to come together in support of the arts while also fighting food insecurity. This year’s event brought together a record number of participants, and the guests seemed to linger longer, enjoying one another’s company, getting their first tour of the Wynne Home, or otherwise just enjoying the event.
For most people, Empty Bowls is a single-day event, but it actually is planned almost year-round. In the fall of each year, Angela Robinson begins scheduling bowl-making classes, which are open to the public. Residents can register for a class, learning from one of the talented instructors, which this year featured Dakota Dube, Leara Phillips, Kathy Crowell, Molly Campbell, and Lauren Clay, (and Canvas and Cork generously provided additional bowls).
After making the bowl, they return to glaze it, and then they have the option of purchasing their bowl or donating it. If donated, it becomes part of the bowls selected by “walk-up” customers on the day of Empty Bowls–and it was quite a selection this year!
The event is one of LEAP’s favorites, and our involvement is multi-faceted. We signed up to make bowls, glaze bowls, and we also volunteer monthly at the Senior Center. This year, many of us made bowls in our own registered class with Lauren Clay, and then made bowls again at the Senior Center, with the congregants. To cap things off, we volunteer at the Wynne Home on the day of Empty Bowls.
That longitudinal process allows us to see the volunteerism at multiple time points, and see the project through to its completion–from the creation of the bowls, to the glazing of the bowls, to the event itself, to the donation to Meals on Wheels–where the money is used to provide meals to seniors in the community. And it was inspiring to see so many people come together, from artists and students to local leaders and supporters, all working toward the same goal of helping others.
For those interested in more opportunities related to the Arts and/or the Wynne Home, see the Spring Classes:
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