Huntington, W.Va. –The Keramos Student Potter’s Guild is working with public relations students from the Marshall University (MU) W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and the Huntington Area Food Bank (HAFB) to play host to the sixth annual Empty Bowls event in April.

Students in the guild began handcrafting ceramic bowls at the beginning of the spring semester and will continue to work until the day of the event.

Students receive praise and appreciation, not a grade, for their efforts. Students take time after completing in-class assignments, as well as during free time to create the ceramic bowls.

About 20 ceramics students are primarily involved in the process, but students from other classes and throughout the ceramics department volunteer to make bowls and become actively involved. Students involved range from first year ceramics undergraduates to graduate students who have helped since the beginning of the event in 2003.

Earline Allen, Marshall’s ceramics professor, has worked with the Empty Bowls Campaign since its inaugural event in 2003.

“Everyone works together to make sure that we create enough bowls for the event,” Allen said. “People pitch in when they can and in the end everything comes together.”

Tommy Warf, a ceramics graduate student from Huntington, has pledged to make 200 bowls this year.

“It really is a labor of love,” Warf said. “Even though it can become hectic at times, it’s for such a good cause that we enjoy helping every year.”

The process of crafting the bowls can range from anywhere between five to 20 minutes, depending on the person’s level of skill. The time-consuming step of the process is making the clay, which can take up to 10 hours.

“When the Empty Bowls Campaign first started, nobody knew what it was and the response was much smaller,” Allen added. “After the second year, it kind of blossomed into something bigger, and now it is the sixth year. We are making as many bowls as we can to make sure there are enough.”

Students take the time to make bowls and also volunteer at the actual event.
“Some of us help show and sell the bowls, others help with the silent auction and some of us are even down in the kitchen,” Warf continued. “Any way that we can contribute to the cause and help raise awareness we are willing to do it.”

The 2009 Empty Bowls event is April 7 from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the First Presbyterian Church, 1015 Fifth Ave., in Huntington, W.Va.

Each person who gives a $12 donation receives a handcrafted bowl and a lunch of soup, bread, and Pepsi, donated by local restaurants and organizations. The idea is to have a simple meal of what resembles an actual soup kitchen.

The event will also feature a silent auction, during which you will have the opportunity to bid on additional bowls, hand-blown glass, an authentic Marshall University cheerleading uniform, signed memorabilia from Chad Pennington and Red Dawson and other gifts. All proceeds from the event benefit the HAFB.

For more information about the HAFB, please call Brooke Ash at (304) 523-6029 or e-mail hafbmail@hafb.org. For more information about the Empty Bowls event, call Campaign Director Meagan Sellards at (304) 412-5900 or e-mail emptybowls@marshall.edu. Erica Rife, the media representative, can be reached at (304) 360-3394, e-mail emptybowls@marshall.edu or visit www.marshall.edu/SOJMC.

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The Huntington Area Food Bank, Inc., is a private, nonprofit, charitable organization affiliated with Feeding America, the largest hunger relief agency in the United States. The HAFB is the hub in a network of food donors and more than 290 agencies that serve hungry people in West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southeastern Ohio. The HAFB assists food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, senior citizens programs, youth programs and residential programs that directly serve the needs of the hungry. The HAFB member agencies are located in 17 counties throughout the Tri-State area. All member agencies served by the HAFB are private and nonprofit. For more information, please visit www.hafb.org.