Empty Bowls adds trailer for Farmers Market
When the local chapter of Empty Bowls started in the fall of 2019, storing a few hand made bowls in the new Clay Studio at Wishing Springs Gallery wasn’t a problem. By 2020, the organization was growing, but because of covid, the Clay Studio was closed to the public so it was easy to store bowls there.
In 2021, covid still kept the studio closed but it didn’t slow the growth of the nonprofit. The handmade bowls are sold with the profits going to feed the hungry. An annual event held at St. Theodore’s Episcopal Church gave purchasers the chance to fill their bowl with homemade soup and browse the collection of one-of-a-kind bowls ready for purchase.
Wishing Springs Gallery, where many of the bowls were sold, was also closed by the pandemic, so Phillip Calkins packed up his car and brought bowls to the Bella Vista Farmers Market. In 2020, 835 bowls were sold. The bowls are also sold online with free shipping.
This year, both Wishing Springs Gallery and the Clay Studio have reopened and that left Calkins with a storage problem. He needed a place to store his inventory of bowls. For a while he used a bedroom at his home, but loading and unloading every week was difficult. So Calkins recently purchased a cargo trailer so he can fill it with bowls and bring them to market every week.
The trailer solved the storage and transport problem, but Calkins knew it could also help with publicity. He wanted to “wrap” the trailer to make it more attractive and also to put the organization’s name on it. So he put his request out online, using Facebook and his email list and found Get Graphics in Springdale to do the work.
He plans to bring the trailer to the Farmer’s Market every week. Usually there are close to 100 handmade bowls to choose from.
He has about 10 potters who make the bowls and a couple more volunteers to help with the organizing. St. Theodore’s will probably do another soup event later this year, he said, but first there will be an ice cream event where people who purchase bowls can have them filled with homemade ice cream.
Cookbooks and T-shirts were added to the inventory and those sales cover administration costs.
Because of the way the organization has grown, the name was changed from Benton County Empty Bowls to Ozark Empty Bowls. Funds still feed the hungry, but now the money is going to several agencies in the region, including the two Missouri counties closest to Bella Vista. The funds are divided according to Feeding America statistics on children who are food insecure.
In only a few years, Ozark Empty Bowls has sold 1,800 bowls while raising over $40,000.
“Hunger happens every day,” Calkins said, and he plans to keep working to feed the hungry every day.