Empty Bowl event returns to raise funds for Mitchell Food Pantry - Mitchell Republic | News, weather, sports from Mitchell South Dakota

Oct 17, 2024

MITCHELL — When temperatures drop and leaves fall from the trees, people get hungry for a hot bowl of soup.

That was in evidence Wednesday morning at the annual Empty Bowl fundraiser at RiverView Church in Mitchell, where students from Mitchell High School and others from Mitchell Technical College were serving up bowls of everything from beef vegetable soup to a soup with a closely-held secret recipe. Funds from the event go to support the Mitchell Food Pantry.

Born out of the global fundraising movement started in 1990 by a teacher in Michigan, the Mitchell version of the project began 16 years ago and has been a staple of the fall season ever since, said Marica Shannon, an art teacher at Mitchell High School and a coordinator for the event.

“The original Empty Bowl started in 1990 in Detroit, and from there it escalated,” Shannon said. “We had a business in town called Cafe Teresa, and they saw it as a trend that was developing.”

The event is now coordinated through Mitchell High School and held in the late morning through the early afternoon. It features the sale of ceramic bowls of a variety of soups cooked up by students from the Mitchell Career and Technical Education Academy. In addition, art students from Mitchell High School sell a selection of hand-crafted bowls that those stopping by for lunch can purchase and take home with them.

The event has migrated from Cafe Teresa to Mitchell High School and MCTEA, and for a time provided the lunch at Dakota Wesleyan University for its Hunger Summit. Now it has its home at RiverTree Church, where students gather as part of the service project that benefits the local food pantry.

In addition, the Mitchell Technical College human services programs invite local service organizations such as LifeQuest to host a booth at the event to share information about potential scholarships and volunteering opportunities at both the high school and college level.

“It’s been a journey with a variety of different groups coming in and out. We have nine different booths set up with human services organizations. For those groups, it's an awareness opportunity for the students that are at Mitchell Tech to set up opportunities for internships, so a lot of them connect with these organizations and they get an internship out of it,” Shannon said. “For (Mitchell High School) students, I have them ask how a student their age could volunteer with them.”

Brooke Jones and Kaitelyn Johnson, both seniors at Mitchell High School who were on hand helping with the event, said they enjoyed the event and the chance to give back through food and art.

Jones has been assisting with the event the past three years, and enjoys interacting with people who are eager to help with a good cause while also admiring local student art.

“(My favorite part is )working with MCTEA culinary students, all the restaurants that help, and I love interacting with everybody and seeing them be amazed at the artwork we bring,” Jones said.

Johnson and Jones both had a hand bringing the ceramic bowls on sale to life, and Johnson also said she was happy to interact with the public while also helping out the Mitchell Food Pantry.

“I genuinely enjoy it. Like Brooke, I did help glaze some of the bowls. We had to speed make some of them the other day because of the amount being sold online,” Johnson said. “I enjoy being able to see how happy it makes people. And just helping the community.”

Max Bruguier, a former Mitchell High School student now attending the University of South Dakota, personally crafted dozens of bowls for the event and was named the featured artist for the 2024 fundraiser. His mother, Kim, said he potentially made as many as 100, noting that his aunt and Shannon both served as inspiration for him as an artist.

The soups being served included a recipe from the former Chef Louie’s restaurant, which closed permanently in 2021. And while the restaurant is closed, its legacy continues with its Roasted Bell Pepper Soup, which is made specially with permission by a longtime employee of the restaurant who is also a booster for the Empty Bowl event.

It’s a sign of the ongoing support the community lends to the fundraiser, Shannon said. Chef Louie’s also donated the tablecloths that adorn the tables at the event from the restaurant, but the secret recipe soup is a special contribution.

“(The recipe) is under lock and key and not to be given out. To have them continue to support us like that — like the tablecloths — they donated that to us. They have been a supporter and continue to support us,” Shannon said. “It’s the one time of year you can get it,” Shannon said.

There are many benefits for many different groups during the event, from the exposure service organizations get to the experience high school students get working in an environment similar to a commercial kitchen. In the end, the underlined benefit is that the sales of the bowls and soup go toward the Mitchell Food Pantry.

Karen Pooley, director for the Mitchell Food Pantry, said it’s a great event with many hands involved. The funding they receive will go toward projects such as the upcoming turkey giveaway the pantry will hold in November.

The event usually brings in around $2,500 for the pantry in around two hours of work.

“It’s great. It’s teamwork, because the culinary students at the high school make the soup. The art students make the bowls. And then on a day like today they get (Mitchell Tech) students to deliver the soup, so it’s all these people working together, so I think that’s great,” Pooley said. “It takes a lot of people, and (the food pantry) is feeding a lot of people.”

The funds raised are important, Pooley said, as the Mitchell Food Pantry has partnerships with groups like Feeding South Dakota, which allows them to purchase food products at considerable discounts. That means they can stretch those dollars further to help those in need.

Pooley said in September of this year alone, the Mitchell Food Pantry assisted 361 households with 1,068 people total in those households. Of those, 410 were children. The continued need for the pantry means events like Empty Bowl are vital to their work.

Shannon said organizers hoped to continue the annual event well into the future, as the benefits for everyone involved are substantial. Seeing high school students working toward a good cause, and working with their older student counterparts as well as the gathered service organizations is inspiring, she said.

And it’s particularly special seeing her art students in the mix.

“I like seeing the passion that it creates in my students. I like to watch their hearts grow with the idea of giving back and using their artistic talents to do that. To have a student give hours and hours to make pottery for this event is outstanding,” Shannon said. (Now) it’s just deciding as to how we can continue to grow it and how we can reach more people.”

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