9/18/2006 4:00:00 AM Filling bowls Empty Bowls helps fill empty cupboards
Courier/Nathaniel Kastelic
Local ceramic artists donate 800 to 900 bowls for the ninth annual Empty Bowls on the courthouse plaza in Prescott Sunday. All proceeds benefit Yavapai County food banks.
By PAULA RHODEN The Daily Courier
Volunteers served more than 100 gallons of soup Sunday on the courthouse plaza in downtown Prescott.
The ninth annual Empty Bowls event benefits the five food banks in the tri-city area.
Day event coordinator Eunice Ricklefs said the two Unitarian congregations in the Prescott area ‹ Prescott Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and Granite Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation, sponsor the benefit.
Additional volunteers include church youth groups and Girl Scout Troop No. 1207.
"Typically, we have raised $12,000," Ricklefs said. "We like to give the five food banks $2,500 each."
Local artisans, students in the Prescott High School sculpture class and the Yavapai Community College ceramics department donated handmade bowls for the event.
Chefs from Prescott Farmers Market, Crossroads Café at Prescott College, Pine Cone Inn Supper Club, Yavapai Regional Medical Centers, Hassayampa Inn, Quality Inn, The Rose Restaurant, Prescott Brewing Company, Hotel St. Michael, Iron Springs Café, and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University prepared and donated gourmet soups for the event.
Area stores donated rolls and bottled water.
For $15, each person attending Sunday's event could select a bowl to keep and receive two servings of soup. Those who did not want any soup could purchase a handmade bowl for $10.
Anyone who wanted just soup, no handmade bowl, could buy a serving for $5, served in a Styrofoam bowl.
Ricklefs said with most of the items donated, Empty Bowls has "very little expense."
"It is fun. At 10:30 this morning people were already lining up. We started serving at 11 a.m. and will stay until we run out of soup, or bowls," Ricklefs said.
Part-time Prescott resident Jan Clarke attended her second Empty Bowls benefit Sunday. She said she enjoys "looking at all the different bowls. It is a good bargain. You can get a bowl, and soup. It is fun to get something different to eat instead of going home and opening a can of soup. And, I like the idea that all the money goes to the food banks."
Volunteer Randee Dermer has worked at the event for five years. He greets people and takes their money at the cashier's table.
Dermer did not keep an official tally, but estimated more than 1,200 people participated in Sunday's event.
