Bowls were painted by MU students, faculty and staff and used to serve soup at the event.
Photo by Marie Fisher
Annual Empty Bowls, Peace Week Event, Raises Money for Food Justice
Sam France
The Empty Bowls event for Peace Week took place on April 23 from noon to 2 p.m. in the university’s mall. The Campus Interfaith Board has offered this event for many years to help people.
“Every year we pick a different charity to support; all of the money we raise goes to a food justice charity,” said Rebekah Houff, university pastor. “This year we are supporting urban seeds, which is based in southern Indiana. They do food justice work by teaching about urban gardening, cooking classes, and all kinds of things.”
The board changes charities each year; they support Indiana charities, local charities and national charities. Last year they raised money for the Poor People’s Campaign.
The Campus Interfaith Board and Student Involvement partnered with Bisque It Pottery Painting Studio located in Fort Wayne for the Manchester University community to paint bowls. “I had a great time at the bowl-painting event,” Karen Jimenez said. “Some friends and I made 12 bowls across the four of us.
She continued: “We painted the bowls because it looked fun. We will definitely do it again next year and make more bowls than we did this year.”
The bowls were available for purchase during the event: $5 students; $10 others.
Not only were there students attending but there were also many members of the North Manchester community having lunch. “It’s just a simple soup lunch to help remind us that there are hunger issues all around the world and we are very blessed to have the things that we have,” Pastor Houff said. “We just have soup and bread and water and that’s it.” Students and some faculty helped serve food and sell the bowls.
Not only was the weather extremely nice, but there were also tables for seating and music playing, which made for an inviting atmosphere. MAC also brought out yard games including cornhole and spike ball.