PITT-BRADFORD PLANS SEVENTH ANNUAL EMPTY BOWLS AND BASKETS DINNER

BRADFORD, Pa. --Pitt-Bradford will hold the seventh annual Empty Bowls and Baskets Dinner of homemade soup and bread to heighten awareness of the fight against hunger and to raise money for the Friendship Table. 

            The dinner will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 15, in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons. Tickets are $10 and will be sold at the door. Diners are invited to take home a hand-painted ceramic bowl, handcrafted basket or hand-sewn cloth napkins as a reminder that someone else’s bowl might be empty. To date, close to $8,855 has been raised to benefit the Friendship Table. 

Dr. Holly J. Spittler, associate dean of student affairs and director of career services, who is chairwoman of the event, said, “What makes the Empty Bowls and Baskets project so special is that people of all ages and backgrounds in our community come together to fight hunger and raise awareness of a growing problem at home and abroad.”

Pitt-Bradford faculty and staff, members of the Alpha Phi Omega Service fraternity, Pitt-Bradford’s Art Club and other volunteers wove baskets or painted ceramic bowls. Art Club students at Fretz Middle School and at Bradford Area High School participated by making ceramic bowls. The American Association of University Women spent a Saturday morning sewing the fabric napkins. 

Third grade students from School Street Elementary, St. Bernard Elementary School, as well as third- and fourth-graders from The Learning Center and the Bradford Area Christian Academy decorated placemats as part of a lesson about hunger. Pitt-Bradford faculty, staff and community volunteers are making the soups and cookies. 

The Empty Bowls Dinner was initiated in 1990 when a Michigan high school art teacher and his students sponsored the first dinner served in handmade bowls to benefit the cause. By the following year, the originators had developed the concept into Empty Bowls, a project to provide support for food banks, soup kitchens and other organizations that fight hunger. Since then, Empty Bowls events have been held throughout the world, and millions of dollars have been raised to combat hunger. For more information on the originators of the event, go to: www.emptybowls.net