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week of 3/6/02 | ||
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In
the name of art SMN On a quiet Sunday afternoon, Mary Etta Burr, a potter at downtown Waynesville’s Burr Studio, pours a glaze into a new set of bowls. The insides look turquoise as they dry, but when they’re done, they’ll take on a darker blue. As lovely as they are sure to turn out, these bowls won’t be sold at her studio. Burr is one of about a dozen area potters who will be donating bowls to raise money for The Open Door Soup Kitchen (242 Commerce St.) in the historic Frog Level area of Waynesville. On Monday, March 11, from 5:30-8 p.m., the public will be invited to the soup kitchen to purchase one of these hand-crafted bowls for $15, which will include a hearty meal of soup, bread and tea or coffee. Organizers for the event are calling it the “Empty Bowl Dinner.” The idea has been around nationwide for about 25 years, according to Phillip Johnston, a potter at Mud Dabbers who helped launch a local version of the fund-raiser. About 200 bowls are going to be donated for this cause, and all of the money raised by the sale of the bowls will go directly to the soup kitchen. Johnston and fellow potter Bob Hammick, as well as other local volunteers, will be cooking and serving food for the guests who come to the Open Door for the event. “I’d like to see it become an annual thing,” said Johnston, who is making his first attempt at a charity fund-raiser like this. “I think we’re just scratching the surface.” Johnston recalled that in Charlotte, some 1,000 bowls were donated as part of an empty bowl fundraiser. Local students got involved and about $15,000 was raised. So if local schools got involved in this Haywood County effort, perhaps the Empty Bowl project has the potential to become a huge event next year. Johnston got wind of the Empty Bowl idea from a magazine article, and originally he talked to some of his potter friends about donating some hand-made bowls to help raise money for the Open Door. Then word got around to at least half a dozen churches in Haywood County, and flyers were sent around to raise additional support. When Johnston talked with the Rev. Frank Doyle, the priest at St. Margaret’s Catholic Church in Maggie Valley, Doyle passed on the news to local churches and friends in Maggie Valley. Doyle volunteers at The Open Door Soup Kitchen and two days a month, parishioners from his church volunteer time there as well, so helping the soup kitchen with a fund-raising event seemed like a great idea. “It was such a wonderfully creative idea,” Doyle said, adding that it’s especially timely with the Lenten season, a spiritual time of making sacrifices for others and helping the poor and less fortunate. The bowls, Doyle said, can serve as icons for people to remember the poor. Johnston’s not sure how many will turn out for the Monday night event, but he’ll be helping to prepare food for about 300 people. If the bowls all sell, there will be additional food on hand which will be sold for $5 per meal. The pottery studios donating bowls include Burr Studio, Deja View, A Different Drummer, Fiery Gizzard, Good Earth, Mud Dabbers, Pitter the Potter, Three Dot, and Twigs & Leaves, as wells as the Haywood Community College Production and Crafts Department and area potters Susan Ballentine, Joan Kennedy and Sarah Rolland. For more information about the Empty Bowl Dinner, call Phillip Johnston at Mud Dabbers Pottery at 828.456.1916. |