Fill an empty bowl and fill a food pantry at the fourth annual “Empty Bowls” fundraiser, which is set for March 23 at The Peddie School’s cafeteria in Highstown Borough.
Tickets for the event, which will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., are $35. They can be purchased at Perennial Home at 119 W. Ward St. in Hightstown, which is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. They may also be purchased online at www.eventbrite.com.
The ticket entitles its purchaser to select a one-of-a-kind bowl and fill it with a hot meal from one of nearly a dozen eateries. Ceramic artist Adam Welch is making 300 hand-thrown stoneware soup bowls, and Hightstown High School students are making an additional 100 bowls.
Proceeds will benefit the food pantry at RISE, the “Send Hunger Packing” initiative through Mercer Street Friends, and the Better Beginnings child care center. More than $36,000 has been raised over the past three years to help relieve hunger.
The idea for “Empty Bowls” came up at a Hightstown Cultural Arts Commission meeting. Committee chairman Anne Marie Miller and vice chairman Adam Welch – the ceramic artist – were aware of similar “empty bowl” fundraisers that have taken place elsewhere in the United States.
“Adam is a ceramic artist and we both loved the idea of the arts helping to relieve hunger,” Miller said.
At the event, the bowls will be filled with hot meals from restaurants that include 12 Farms, 4 Seasons Cafe and Deli, the Americana Kitchen and Bar, and Fernando’s Grille.
The Hightstown Diner, Manino’s 4, Morgan’s Island Grill, Pompier Catering, Tacorito and Tavern on the Lake also are participating.