Ceramics students work hard in preparation for their Empty Bowls fundraiser. Credit: Courtesy of Breana Hendricks
Ohio State’s ceramics students are using their pottery skills to help feed the Columbus community with an Empty Bowls fundraiser.
The fundraiser — hosted by the Student League of Independent Ceramicists — will take place Friday 5-7 p.m. in the Great Hall Meeting Room of the Ohio Union. According to an OSU Ceramics Instagram post, the event will include the opportunity to participate in a silent auction and purchase handmade pottery pieces, with all proceeds donated to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Additionally, attendees who purchase a handmade bowl will be treated to a bowl of soup, courtesy of Ohio State Catering.
Hannah Slagell, president of the Ohio State Ceramics Club and a fifth-year in ceramics, said Empty Bowls, an international project with the goal of fighting hunger and supporting locals, was originally founded in 1990 by a high school art teacher, John Hartom, and his class in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
“He wanted to do a fundraiser with his students where they sold the bowls and they put soup in them,” Slagell said. “After that, other artists in the area and communities started. It’s now international, making these bowls.”
Steven Thurston, associate professor of the ceramics program within the university’s Department of Art, said the program plans to start its own chapter of Empty Bowls — which now spans to countries such as Thailand, Spain and Australia.
Thurston said the initiative to bring Empty Bowls to Ohio State was led by students in the ceramics program and serves as an example of the program’s broader efforts to engage with the Columbus community.
“I think it’s an extension of what [Ohio State] does in terms of the ceramic program here,” Thurston said. “It started in 1926 and it’s always been rooting or connecting to the industries around, so it’s just another extension of how we’ve interacted with the state of Ohio.”
With this being the inaugural Empty Bowls fundraiser for the Ohio State ceramics program, Breana Hendricks, SLIC’s treasurer and a third-year in ceramics, said though she hopes to raise large amounts of money for Mid-Ohio Food Bank, her main hope is that the event builds a sense of connection and awareness with the larger Ohio State community.
“I think community participation is our main goal,” Hendricks said. “I have worked with other communities that have had a baseline of $18,000 or $10,000 for the first couple of years, but participation is the most important right now.”
Slagell said though community engagement is the main goal, seeing the success of Empty Bowls fundraisers at other universities gives her hope for this event.
“I looked at Wittenberg University; they’ve done it for so many years, and their success rate is now 1,000 bowls they made this past April, and they made $44,000,” Slagell said.
Slagell said she also hopes Friday’s event serves as a springboard for the growth of Empty Bowls within the Ohio State community, with hopes of collaborating with other departments in the future.
“We would like to eventually expand this to collaborate with the School of Agriculture,” Slagell said. “Also, we would like to reach out to restaurants on High Street to get the larger community around Columbus to participate in a worthwhile cause.”
Tickets for the event are $35 and can be purchased at the door. For more information, view OSU Ceramics’ Instagram post about the event.
