Filling Asheville’s Empty Bowls
Iris Seaton | December 1, 2022
Empty Bowls dinners are events held all over the world to raise funds for food security programs. These unique events combine appreciation of art, breaking of bread awareness of food security problems in communities. Warren Wilson College (WWC) held its 24th annual Empty Bowls event the evening of Nov. 16.
The basic concept of an Empty Bowls dinner is a formula followed by the hosts of these events worldwide. Artists donate handmade bowls to the program. These bowls are sold along with tickets for attendance to the dinner itself and the proceeds go to beneficiary programs devoted to ending hunger.
Writing Studio director Julie Wilson waiting to fill her bowl.
After two years of adapting these dinners to a virtual setting, WWC and this year's beneficiaries — Bountiful Cities and their FEAST program — are looking forward to returning to an in-person event.
According to their website, Bountiful Cities is “an Asheville based nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching sustainable agriculture skills and sharing resources to promote social justice, economic viability and community resilience.”
Bountiful Cities, founded in 2000, has many programs under the umbrella of their mission to build community resilience and create accessible sources of education to promote food security. One of these, this year's beneficiary of the proceeds of the WWC Empty Bowls fundraiser, is FEAST.
FEAST, an acronym for ‘fresh, easy, affordable, sustainable, tasty,’ aims to teach children how to grow and prepare foods that fit the description of their program perfectly. Their afterschool and classroom programs in schools in and near Asheville, N.C., are designed to teach school children the importance, joy and accessibility of this process. FEAST educators teach a variety of age ranges to plant and care for food gardens, prepare healthy foods and learn to understand and look forward to these opportunities.
Jordan Diamond is the FEAST Program Coordinator. She also teaches at Lucy S. Herring Elementary school. FEAST’s website describes the garden and program at Lucy S. Herring as “An outdoor learning laboratory designed to educate the whole child and community through hands-on learning that promotes environmental stewardship, character development and healthy lifestyles. Every grade level participates in gardening and cooking classes on a regular basis, each with their own plot in the garden to tend to and harvest both learning and food from.”
FEAST wasn’t always separate from Bountiful Cities. It was originally an independent non-profit. When the program had the chance to merge resources with Bountiful Cities, they were excited for the benefits that came with a larger organization.
“We merged with Bountiful Cities in 2018,” Diamond said. “And that empowered us to be able to write larger grants that are connected to a broader movement that was similar. It just made sense for us at that time to be part of something bigger. Bountiful Cities does a lot of work with the Food Policy Council, Asheville, Buncombe County.”
Diamond was also enthusiastic about the specifics of their further involvement with Bountiful Cities and their food justice programs.
“We do a lot of work with community gardens — a community garden network is another program,” Diamond said. “And there's a program — The Windfall Collective Nursery — they grow plant starts for our school gardens, as well as community gardens. And so we're part of this larger food justice movement, urban agriculture movement, by being a part of Bountiful Cities.”
Diamond’s experiences teaching at schools for the FEAST program have been rewarding. The program varies on a few details based on grade levels; Diamond teaches weekly during science learning blocks in 30 minute sessions for kindergarteners, 45 minutes for second, third and fourth graders and hour-long sessions for fifth graders.
The way the FEAST program functions also varies based on the season.
“This is the last week of garden focused lessons, so we’ve been outside every day,” Diamond said. “Or, when weather allows, we have the lessons outside in the garden. Starting after Thanksgiving and through early March, we'll be cooking indoors. Occasionally in those lessons we might bring some trays in and start seeds, or make an adventure to the garden because the weather is nice. But cooking primarily happens in the winter and then we go back to the garden in March.”
Part of why the program is so rewarding to Diamond and fellow teachers is the level of student satisfaction that is almost always present in her classes.
“Parents often tell me that the kids won't say much about what they did that day on most days,” Diamond said. “They know when they have me, because the kids will come home and they'll be talking about something that they saw in the garden, or something they ate —or something someone else ate — that was exciting to them.”
Diamond expressed further enthusiasm for the joy and love of gardening and preparing food FEAST instills in children through the lens of her own inner child.
“I think part of my enthusiasm for the work I get to do is that I'm creating something that I would have wanted,” Jordan said. “I'm creating something that I want to exist.”
Kathy Cleary, outreach coordinator and co-founder of the FEAST program, also spoke about the importance of their work as Diamond. Her current position with the program focuses on developing relationships within Asheville, Buncombe County and Madison County that promote food justice and access.
After a cheerful pause to remove her rambunctious puppy playing in the background, Cleary described her original vision and the changes that made the FEAST program what it is today.
Cleary’s background as a restaurant owner and avid cook led her to a passionate interest in a program to provide the many children growing up without basic cooking skills a space to cultivate that knowledge.
“We felt like we could improve food security and food access if we enabled kids to know how to prepare fruits and vegetables and basic things like beans and rice — things that are staples, like, things that are inexpensive to prepare,” Cleary said.
Cleary and her co-founders’ vision was an ambitious goal and while they were committed to making it a reality, they quickly realized that in order to facilitate true food access and security, their idea would need some modifications. When they started the FEAST program in 2009, one important tweak had been added that would change the nature of the program into something even more valuable to the community it served.
“We quickly realized that for the true vision of food sovereignty, there had to be a gardening component to it,” Cleary said. “Because just relying on food from a store or a pantry or something like that does not mean that you are going to have food access. But if you’ve got seeds and you've got some dirt, you're a lot more likely to be able to provide for yourself and your community.”
Kenia Romero, a senior student at WWC, has been working on the Bonner Leaders Crew since she began at the school. She explained the many functions of the multi-faceted crew; nurturing the school’s connections, organizing service learning trips during fall and spring semesters and helping students meet requirements for PEGs (Points of Engagement and Growth.)
Since Romero began her job as a bonner leader, she has also helped to facilitate the Empty Bowls program. There are many different aspects that go into the difficult choice of who will receive the proceeds from the dinner.
“It's always always an organization that is doing something for the issue of hunger and food because we do live in certain areas [that] are food deserts,” Romero said.
Empty Bowls events, as stated by Romero, are always held for the benefit of organizations focused on goals of food access and security. The Empty Bowls website describes the concept as “a grassroots movement by artists and craftspeople in cities and towns around the world to raise money for food related charities to care for and feed the hungry in their communities.”
Many hosts of these events have cited specific symbolism behind the way the dinners function. The handmade bowls in which the meals are served are kept by donors after the dinner is over. This serves both as a simple ‘thank you’ from the beneficiaries, and also as a poignant reminder of the many other empty bowls created by hunger around the world.