On November 30th the new Empty Bowls-Puerto Peñasco organization will be holding its first Annual event. The 500+ attendees will be gathering together at the American Legion Post MX-15 as “neighbors helping neighbors” striving to ease the pains of hunger in our beautiful little town.
Empty Bowls is an international organization started in 1990 by a high school art teacher and his students in Michigan. Guests at their event were served a simple meal of soup, bread, and water and they were invited to keep the bowl as a reminder of hunger in the world. The proceeds went to support a local food bank. Since then, the concept has spread around the world, including Puerto Peñasco just this year.
Our group here was started by local potter and artist, Renée Shearer, owner of The Turquoise Door in Plaza de San Miguel in the Mirador. With last year’s one-month closing of the border Renée realized there were so many more people laid off from their jobs and really struggling to meet just the bare necessities for their families. With the help of a handful of her friends they organized and facilitated our Inaugural Empty Bowls event this past February. With this first small event, which sold out, they raised over $4000 that went directly to providing staple foods for almost 200 local families.
With that first successful event under her belt Renee then put out the call for volunteers to start working on officially establishing an Empty Bowls group in Puerto Peñasco. The first meeting garnered over 40 volunteers that wanted to help.
Since then, we have selected a Steering Committee, set up working volunteer committees, organized and facilitated four small fundraising events. The proceeds from one of these small events allowed us to work with DIF to provide fresh fruit to the senior meals that they provide.
Since August 31st the group has been selling Advanced Tickets for the November event, and working hard to create and collect over 500 handmade bowls for the event. We have also been lining up chefs to prepare the 12 different gourmet soups and four different types of bread. Our silent Auction will have some amazing auction items; 2–3-night stays at various resorts, gourmet seasoning baskets, gift certificates for local restaurants and bakeries, exquisite one of a kind artwork, and much more.
If you haven’t already bought your tickets for the November 30th event, please go to our website to find out how to get them (www.emptybowls-puertopenasco.com), check us out on Facebook, or stop by The Turquoise Bowl in Plaza de San Miguel. This is going to be a wonderful event with all proceeds going directly out to the community to help stave off hunger in Puerto Peñasco.
