'Empty Bowls' to raise money for Lynchburg Daily Bread

By: Liz Barry | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: February 27, 2009

if you’re going
-WHAT: Empty Bowls, a fundraiser for Lynchburg Daily Bread
-WHEN: noon to 2 p.m. March 7
-WHERE: The Academy of Fine Arts Warehouse Theatre
-COST: Tickets are $15; cost includes bowl and a meal of soup and bread.
-INFO: For tickets or to learn more, call (434) 846-8499 or visit www.academyfinearts.com.

In the Academy of Fine Arts pottery studio, a plywood shelf is stacked with handmade bowls, glazed and fired in hues of blue, red, green and brown.

On March 7, those bowls will be sold to raise money for Lynchburg Daily Bread, part of the nationwide Empty Bowls program.

The event includes a meal of soup and bread, which will be served between noon and 2 p.m. at the Academy’s Warehouse Theatre.

“Once you’ve eaten your food, you have an empty bowl, and you’re reminded there’s plenty of people who don’t have anything in their bowls in the world,” says May Carter, the Academy’s pottery director and organizer of the event.

Lynchburg Daily Bread, which feeds the hungry and offers daytime shelter to the homeless at its Clay Street location, has seen a substantial rise in demand for its meals during the past several months, says Executive Director Lolita Warwick. They currently serve about 150 people a day.

“A lot of people lost their jobs, got laid off,” she says. “It’s really tough right now.”

That need helped spark the Empty Bowls effort to raise money for the nonprofit organization.

Volunteers and community groups have made more than 100 bowls since January; some participants include local Brownie troops, the Steps with Links after-school program and the Newcomers Club.

The goal is to raise more than $1,500, Carter says.

“I’ve always thought about it, and just decided this is the year,” says Carter.