ART & FOOD BENEFIT
Saratoga Clay Arts Center’s Chili Bowl fundraiser raises money for two local charities
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. >> The Saratoga Clay Arts Center held its 11th annual Chili Bowl fundraiser in the Saratoga City Center, combining art and food to raise money for two local charities.
This year, the event raised money for two returning foundations — the Wilton Food Pantry and To Life!, a breast cancer non-profit, as well as for the Arts Center. Both monetary and non-perishable donations contributed to the organizations.
“Why not?” said Jill Kovachick, Director of Saratoga Clay Arts Center since 2011, about having a chili bowl fundraiser. “It brings people out in the winter.”
Attendees paid an entrance fee of $2 or two food items and paid $25 (plus tax) for the bowls they used to sample chili from five different local restaurants. The bowls, all 1,500 of them, were made by the Saratoga Clay Arts Center and other local artists over the last several months.
“We just decided that we were gonna create bowls and have different artists from different areas come in as well as the Clay Arts Center people making bowls as a community kind of thing,” Kovachick said. “And a lot of people will come back time and time again, year after year to get more bowls so it’s fun.”
On top of that, Kovachick and other artists — local and otherwise — make works for the silent auction. There, guests could find more bowls plus items like a barbeque sauce container, a ring dish with a fox sleeping in a hilly countryside or even a coffee mug that looks like melting pizza.
There was also one large prize available through a raffle: a salt-fired orb with layered glazes that was two feet tall that Kovachick made herself, a piece that would normally go for thousands of dollars. She also made several bowls that she signed purchasable for $100 each with the proceeds going directly to To Life!
To Life! services the entire Capital Region, said Executive Director Eileen Howe Bird, by providing those diagnosed with breast cancer and their families a level of support outside the hospital where they can be with others in their situations. They have everything from support groups to guides for wigs and implants to yoga to nature walks to book clubs.
They want to be able to provide as many options for as many people as they can, Bird said, and try to help survivors and fighters get involved as little or as much as they want. They also are advocates in the community for screenings and education on breast cancer.
“From the To Life! standpoint, we do celebrate anyone who is working through the creative process with the idea of it being therapeutic and a very healing endeavor,” Bird said. “That’s some of what Jill is bringing together through the
community.
“People are really struggling,” she continued, “so for them to have a safe place and respite, that’s what we’re all about.”
One of the aspects of the organization that Bird mentioned was how it creates a community for survivors and those actively fighting cancer to join in whatever way they need to. And throughout the Chili Bowl, almost everyone talked about their different connections to the Clay Arts Center and the Chili Bowl.
Sam VanDemark of one of the featured restaurants — Walt and Whitman Brewing — said it was their first year at the Bowl, but when it used to be held at the Center’s building in Schuylerville, he remembers having cars backed up to his nearby driveway. John Boyd, one of the volunteers from the Arts Center has been working and throwing there for three years but has bowls at home from when he used to come as just a community member.
Even Ben Niese, who was collecting the food items for the Wilton Food Pantry, said he, his husband and his friend always volunteer for this event and see people come through with so many links to the Arts Center or the Bowl.
“It’s a great event, I do it every year,” Niese said. “The need is always out there… There’s food insecurity, you know, in our own backyard so this is a nice little aspect of bringing that level of consciousness to it. It’s kind of a fun signature event.”
As far as the chili itself, Kovachick said they asked five different restaurants to join them and have last year’s winner come back as well. Rob Cardona, chef for the returning champ Cardona’s Market, said it’s a great way to get exposure with the community and to engage in a competition, which is always fun.
“We like to do things for the community. One of our employees who works in Saratoga is also involved with the Clay Arts Center so it’s really good for us to get involved,” he said. “And it’s fun for us; we get to feature some different things that we wouldn’t normally.”
They had about 700 people registered online before the event, Kovachick said, with scheduled time slots for people to come in to help keep the crowd levels manageable. The first time slot from 11 to 12 still packed the room with people of all ages dodging each other to find the end of each restaurant’s line.
Based on previous years, Bird said they will likely raise around $30,000 for To Life! alone, and though he didn’t know monetarily what the picture would look like, Niese said there will be a little under 1000 pounds of food for the local food pantries.
“This is so cool. I mean look at all the people here,” Kovachick said, gesturing to the out-the-door line before the event even officially began at 11 a.m. “I’m assuming we’re gonna sell out today…This is wild.”