Empty Bowls Camas organizers aim for ‘bigger impact’ in 2025

Group's 2024 event in raised awareness of food insecurity in Camas-Washougal area

By Doug Flanagan
December 19, 2024 11:00 am
Camas, Latest News, Life, News, Washougal

An attendee looks at a handmade bowl during the Empty Bowls Camas event, held at the AWPPW Local 5 building in Camas, Sept. 17, 2024. (Contributed photos courtesy of Jamie St. Clair)

Before the first Empty Bowls Camas event in September 2024, event organizer Jamie St. Clair told Nancy Wilson, the director of the Inter-Faith Treasure House in Washougal, that she hoped to raise $2,000 for the nonprofit organization, which provides food assistance to local residents in need.

Several weeks later, St. Clair returned to the Treasure House to present Wilson with a check for $13,500, a welcome signal that the inaugural Empty Bowls event had surpassed all expectations.

“It was a hell of a lot more than I thought we’d be giving them, and it was a hell of a lot more than I thought we’d have in the first year,” said Anna Norris, the co-owner of the Camas-based Norris Arts Studio and Gallery. “We were just hoping to cover our expenses. I was quite blown away by it.”

Event organizers have already launched their efforts to prepare for the 2025 event, which will be held Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, at the Black Pearl on the Columbia event center in Washougal.

“We’re trying to get more sponsorships to help us grow the event, to be bigger and make an even bigger impact for (the Treasure House),” St. Clair said.

The inaugural Empty Bowls Camas event, held Sept. 17, 2024, at the AWPPW Local 5 building in Camas, invited attendees to sample soups from Camas restaurants Feast at 316, MESA, Natalia’s Cafe, Tommy O’s and Grains of Wrath, and take home a locally made, handcrafted ceramic bowl of their choosing.

Norris Arts potters created 430 bowls for the inaugural event, which sold all of its available 300 tickets and attracted about 30 sponsors.

“I was surprised that we sold out the very first time,” St. Clair said. “It’s an event that most people haven’t heard about, but because it’s so interesting, and it’s a very fun event to attend, it sold easily. You’re coming together. You’re getting handmade pottery. You get the soup samples. And you get to support people in need. It’s kind of a win-win event.”

Empty Bowls began in 1990, in Bloomfield, Michigan, when a group of high school art students, led by their teacher, John Hartom, threw, decorated and fired 120 bowls, which were given to school staff members, who were treated to a meal of soup and bread.

Hartom and his wife, Lisa Blackburn, talked to the staff members about hunger in their community, thanked them for their cash donations, and asked them to take the bowls home as a reminder of people who experience hunger. Empty Bowls events are now held all over the world and have raised “millions of dollars to help end hunger,” according to organization.

St. Clair ran an Empty Bowls event in McKinney, Texas, for 10 years before moving to Camas in 2021.

“I got involved at Norris Arts in their pottery studio,” she said. “I kept wearing my Empty Bowls T-shirts, and they (asked me about it). Apparently, there was an Empty Bowls event in Camas in 2020, held by Camas High School students working with their ceramics teacher. The teacher is no longer teaching there, but (before he left), he had suggested to Ted and Anna Norris that they could pick it up and run with it. They started talking to me, and I said, ‘Sure.’”

The success of the inaugural event elevated the organizers’ expectations. They now hope to sell 600 tickets, bring 750 bowls and invite around 10 restaurants, including Washougal eateries, to take part in the second annual event, St. Clair said.

“I’m trying to double the participation,” she explained. “We’ll have a lot more room, and we’ll have room for more restaurants, too. We had five restaurants in the Jazzercise building, and we were fighting to get enough electricity for everybody because they had to have a way to keep their soups warm. But the Black Pearl, being an event center, has great options. We’re definitely going to invite more restaurants, which makes it an even more fun event for people. We’ve got a lot of great ideas for raffles and even an art auction.”

Norris also hopes to bring hand-building and pottery throwing demonstrations to the 2025 event.

“(We want to have) demos so that people can see what goes into making that bowl that they have just purchased or picked out,” Norris said. “I think it’s important for people to know. It’ll make you go to restaurants, pick up your dishes and look under them to see if they’re hand-thrown or if they’re machine made.”

Norris Arts potters have already made 100 bowls and should easily clear the 750-mark for the 2025 event, according to Norris. The downtown Camas studio is holding “throwing parties” from 5 to 7 p.m. on the first Sunday of every month for its more experienced potters to create bowls specifically for the event.

“(They want to) give back,” Norris said of the local ceramic artists. “It’s a big family once you’re in it. Potters, we all kind of tend to know each other, and it’s a beautiful, beautiful web. We’re a beautiful web of connected people that want to create and give back, and we get to give back in a way that we can showcase our talents and get the word out there a little bit better. To be able to do something you love and be creative with and put your heart into it (is a great feeling).”

The potters also enjoy the creativity and the diversity of the bowl-making process, according to Norris.

“You can’t find any that match, which is lovely,” she said of the bowls. “We usually try to glaze colors of maybe four at a time, but none of them turn out the same, and that, to me, is the beauty of pottery. That’s what makes an art piece. It’s really fun to see that.”

The potters who work on the bowls will use clay from Norris Arts, but can make a variety of bowl sizes.

“It’s kind of pre-portioned into pound-and-a-half balls,” she said of the clay, “but they can take two and put them together, so you get all these varied sizes and varied shapes, and then when the glazing happens, I just let them go crazy. You’re going to get a lot of different visions.”

The Inter-Faith Treasure House feeds 1,300 Camas and Washougal residents each month through food boxes, and provides emergency food to 320 local students each month through its backpack program. The Treasure House is supported by a network of local churches, community groups and volunteers, who put in more than 600 hours of work every month.

“They’ve been a backbone of feeding people in Camas and Washougal,” St. Clair said of the volunteers. “There are a lot of great food pantries in the area, but we really wanted to (help) a hyperlocal organization. They do amazing work with not a whole lot of funding, so they seemed like a really good choice.”

In Washington state, 688,170 people, including 197,550 children, are facing hunger and national nonprofit organizations report needing an additional $468 million per year to meet the country’s growing food-insecurity needs, according to recent data from Feeding America, a Chicago nonprofit organization.

“I think food insecurity is awful and should not be happening here. That is just ridiculous,” Norris said. “I think (the Empty Bowls event) was eye-opening for some people to hear about the food insecurity in this area. I don’t see that getting better soon, and that’s unfortunate. But we’re going to help in whatever way we can. Whatever you think this area is, there’s a need. I think people walked away with a lot more knowledge. Maybe their eyes were opened a bit. I think that’s all we can do — teach in whatever way we can.”

Empty Bowls organizers are currently seeking sponsors for the 2025 event. For more information, email St. Clair at director@emptyb owlscamas.org.

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