Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Ceramic artwork event supports services center
» There was a whole lot of volunteerism going on at the Empty Bowls luncheon on Saturday, all toward the goal of supporting the borough’s Neighborhood Services Center — often called “The Heart of the Community.” Neighborhood services is the half-century-old agency that helps local people with heating oil, food, rent payments or just about anything else they need to get them trough rough spots in their lives.
Dozens of home-grown artists filed into the Penn’s Grove School cafeteria to eat some freshly made soup and collect the ceramic bowls they had decorated under the tutelage of the Oxford Arts Alliance during the past month or so. With a few exceptions, they found their bowls colorful and fancied up with glazing, sitting on a long table, ready to be scooped up and filled with lunch.
They had options for the pick-up occasion however:
If the designers wanted, they could get the bowls, take them home and save them as art. Or they could stay and eat the soup in their ceramic bowls. Or they could eat the soup from Styrofoam cups provided at the serving table and avoid getting their works of art soiled. Some people even just came for lunch without having made a bowl.
For the most part,
the participants were so pleased with the results of their efforts that they held onto their works of art and obtained the soup in the disposable cup provided.
The luncheon ran from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The freshly made soup was contributed by local restaurants. There was mushroom, pasta fazool, vegetable and wonton, from Nottingham Kitchen and Creamery, La-Sicilia, Sawmill Grill and Hong Kong Restaurant respectively. As a side dish there were breads from Flowers Foods and juices.
The kids from Oxford High School’s Helping Hands group showed up to serve and do what was needed to make the day a success. It has become a habit for the members of this group to contribute their talents and time to the community no matter what the need. Some of the members said it is a group of more than 100 kids at the high school and it is prestigious to be part of.
Another group that was part of the effort were Dansko company employees, who held a painting occasion at their headquarters. Their bowls were on display.
Still another club that came was “The BABS.” They are a local neighborhood group of women that gets together each month for a new adventure. The bowl designing was last month’s adventure. Several of them said they enjoyed it so much they were going to do it again.
Empty Bowls, which is celebrated nationwide, is touted as one of many volunteer efforts in Oxford.
The participants paid $20 to join. That covered the blank ceramic bowl, the glaze, the lunch and the firing. On Saturday, even the fee for people who hadn’t done a bowl and were just coming for lunch and a look at the bowls paid the $20.
Amazingly, so much of the effort was contributed charitably that almost every penny went to Neighborhood Services. In previous years, that has amounted to several thousand dollars.
In the case of Oxford’s Empty Bowls, it was a coming together of the school district, Neighborhood Services and The Oxford Arts Alliance.
Oxford Area School District Superintendent David Woods was praised for offering the use of the school’s kilns to fire the bowls at no cost.
The Arts Alliance contributed the glaze, bowls and other equipment.
The restaurants gave the soup.
Flowers Foods (Tastykake) gave the bread and honey buns.
The Helping Hands kids provided the labor.
Even Ben Clark, who works in the Oxford schools cafeteria, provided his expertise and presence as a certified food handler, which made the luncheon possible.
The bowls were created with a myriad of designs from children and adults, both artists and those who didn’t consider themselves talented.
Oxford’s Empty Bowls was one of many events held in the borough annually that supports Neighborhood Services.