Empty Bowls and Baskets dinner to raise money for Friendship Table

Pitt-Bradford will host the 12thannual Empty Bowls and Baskets Dinner to raise 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 in the Frame-Westerberg Commons. A donation of $10 will be accepted at the door.

The simple dinner will include a wide array of homemade soups, homemade bread, beverages and baked good. Diners are invited to take home a handcrafted basket, ceramic bowl or handmade cloth napkin set, as a reminder that someone else's bowl might be empty.

The event is a community-wide effort. Pitt-Bradford students, faculty and staff wove baskets and painted bowls at a Stress-Free Sunday event in the Harriett B. Wick Chapel. The American Association of University Women spent a Saturday morning sewing the napkin sets. Bradford Area High School students created ceramic bowls.

Third grade students from School Street Elementary, St. Bernard School, as well as third and fourth graders from The Learning Center and the Bradford Area Christian Academy, decorated place mats for the event as part of a lesson about hunger.

Campus and community volunteers will donate the more than 25 varieties of soup and cookies. Over the past 12 years, this popular event has raised more than $20,000 for the Friendship Table.

While all the money raised will go to The Friendship Table, event planners are asking attendees to bring a food or hygiene item for the Panther Pantry, a new on-campus resource for Pitt students who may be facing food insecurity. Single serving food items are recommended. A collection box for the Panther Pantry will be located by the entrance to the dinner.

The Empty Bowls Dinner began 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.

Other contributors include Bradford Area High School ceramics students and their teacher Jenelle Turk, W.R. Case and Sons, Habitat for Humanity, Rotaract, Office of the President, Metz Culinary Management, Anne Mormile, Pitt-Bradford's Alpha Phi Omega Service Fraternity, Office of Community Engagement, Conference Services, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Sue Franklin, Carma Horner and Fran Stewart, Martha Dibble, Division of Communication and the Arts, Division of Management and Education, Division of Physical and Computational Sciences, Staff Association, Student Affairs, Tops Friendly Markets, Wal-Mart, Zonta Club and Zippo Manufacturing.