Foodstock 2002: Special Edition

Many people are aware of the problem of hunger, but do not know what it feels like to be hungry, how it impacts our communities directly or how they can help. The Quaker Valley Student Service-Learning Center aims to change this through the annual Empty Bowls Dinner. Held in Sewickley, Pennsylvania for the past three years and again this year before Thanksgiving, the Empty Bowls Dinner has raised almost $9,000 for the Sewickley Community Center Food Bank, which serves 90 to 115 families per week and educates the public about hunger issues.

Hunger is a serious issue throughout all of Allegheny County. The following statistics reflect hunger-related needs and resources of our county:

More than 85,000 people are using emergency food assistance services through the Food Bank’s network agencies. Throughout the service area, more than 138,000 households are served. In Allegheny County, 29,500 children under the age of 12, (one out of every seven) are hungry or at-risk of hunger. Of those children, 15,000 (one out of every four) live in the city of Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Food Bank distributes nearly 13 million pounds of food to 350 member agencies each year.
The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank operates a certified-organic vegetable farm in Armstrong County, that supplies same-day picked produce to neighborhood pickup points.

To raise money for the local food bank, the students of the Service-Learning Center follow a model created in 1990 by two art teachers in Michigan. The model meets three core objectives: creating community awareness about hunger, using “art to effect positive social change” and raising money for the food bank. The Empty Bowls Dinner works, in part, by allowing dinner guests to experience going through a bread line. After paying a $10 admission, guests receive a simple dinner of soup, bread, fruit, and water. Left feeling hungry, the guests then take home a ceramic bowl made either by students or other community members. Guests are told to always keep their bowls empty to represent the ongoing problem of hunger.

In addition to the dinner, the center also organizes a health fair to take place in an adjacent area, where guests can view presentations and find information about such topics as nutrition, diet and hunger. Local musicians also provide live entertainment at the dinner.

This year, the Empty Bowls Dinner will be held on Sunday, November 24 at Edgeworth Elementary School in Sewickley, PA. The Quaker Valley Student Service-Learning Center aims to serve over 600 guests while educating the community and raising money for local families in need.

To make this possible, all 24 students in the Student Service-Learning Center must contribute time and work. There are eight separate teams in the center, all meeting a different need of the Empty Bowls Dinner. The Human Services Team delegates responsibilities and ensures that everything runs smoothly. They sell tickets at local shops and facilities, and request donations for food and supplies. The Education and Literacy Team raises awareness about hunger, recruits volunteers and collects the bowls. The International Team creates a display about world hunger to be set up in the health fair. The Environmental Team secures the building and oversees the floor plan, while the Health Team organizes the health fair. The Technology Team produces a Power Point presentation about world hunger, the Home Team creates a storyboard about the history of the Student Service-Learning Center, and the Communications and Public Relations Team publicizes this event with posters, news releases and pamphlets. Since the beginning of the year, all eight teams have been working towards meeting their goals in hopes that this year’s Empty Bowls Dinner will be a success.

Please visit the following sites for more statistics on hunger in Pennsylvania and the nation:
http://trfn.clpgh.org/harvest/hunger_fact_sheet.htm
http://www.pittsburghfoodbank.org