Empty Bowls fundraiser brings light to those going hungry – The Aurora Sentinel
Posted: Thursday, December 16, 2010 8:31 am | Updated: 5:14 pm, Mon Dec 27, 2010.
GREENWOOD VILLAGE | The colorful design on Aaron Offermann’s small, ceramic bowl had a certain symbolism.
The 11-year-old student from Homestead Elementary School in Centennial had carefully painted a night sky full of stars on the inside of the clay bowl, just as he had meticulously colored a bright, sun drenched view on the outside.
“For the hungry, it’s all dark for them on the inside,” Offermann said as he stood with his mother, Gina Offermann, at the Empty Bowls charity event Dec. 9 at Cherry Creek High School. “But the sun is rising.”
Offermann said he wanted the two motifs to align with the larger mission of the Empty Bowls event, a charity initiative that drew hundreds of handmade bowls from students across the Cherry Creek Schools district. For the past five years, elementary, middle and high school students have donated bowls crafted in art classes to sell at the event. The proceeds, which have ranged from $6,500 to $10,000 during the past five years, all go to the Food Bank of the Rockies.
“I think it gives kids a real feeling of giving to others,” said Kathy DeWeese, an art teacher at Homestead who had her students contribute bowls for this year’s event. “They realize how lucky they are every day to have something to eat, and the Empty Bowl project is there to remind us that everyone isn’t as fortunate.”
This year, students from Prairie Middle School in Aurora donated, along with art classes from Cherry Creek High, West Middle, Greenwood Elementary, Homestead Elementary and Belleview Elementary schools. In recent years, the Empty Bowls event has spread to school districts across the state; the Aurora Public Schools has held its own version of the charity event at Gateway High School for the past four years.
For a minimum donation of $10, attendees at the Cherry Creek event got a homemade soup dinner donated by parents and community members in the district; they also got to take home one of the hand-painted ceramic bowls that were created by students and teachers.
According to Efong Yee, the art teacher at Cherry Creek High who has organized the event for the district for the past five years, the event is a good way to encourage collaboration across the district for a good cause.
“It’s nice because we’re using art to help with this fundraiser … There are several districts that do it, everyone runs it really differently,” Yee said. “We do it so they have the freedom to select what they want … The elementary students get to come in and see what the older students are doing. That’s why it’s nice to have the feeder schools come in, too.”
As in past years, the Cherry Creek event also featured a silent auction, a selection that featured items from local restaurants, the Denver Art Museum and the Botanic Gardens. Still, the real draw of the event was the hand-crafted bowls, as parents, students and community members looked for the ideal ceramic piece that would contribute to a good cause.
Aaron Offermann and his mother didn’t have to look long to find the piece they wanted to take home. They quickly zeroed in on the glazed bowl that bore the dual, night-and-day views, the piece that he’d worked hard to craft and mold during after-school sessions during recent weeks.
“This is my first bowl,” Offermann said. “It was a little tough. I had to put three layers of glaze on it … I went in after school, but it was very fun.”