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Second annual Empty Bowls continues fight against hunger

By Andy Stanko And luke Campbell for The Yellow Jacket 5 min read

The Bonner Scholars will end a busy semester by taking on hunger in Greene County.

On Sunday, April 19, the Bonners will take to the Greene County Fairgrounds from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. to raise money and awareness with lunch and a handmade bowl. The proceeds benefit the Greene County Weekend Food Program.

“Hunger has been a very large issue recently,” said Rebecca Shindelar, junior human service major and Bonner Scholar. “It’s a prevalent issue because one in five children are food insecure in southwestern Pennsylvania.”

According to the Community Foundation of Greene County, food insecure children face increased risk of health problems, behavior problems, job readiness and education problems.

The reality of over 1,500 food insecure children across Greene County does not come as a surprise to Bonner Scholars who serve at sites where they are in contact with children in need.

“Personally, I worked in west Waynesburg the past two summers at WWJD day camp,” said Shindelar. “I worked with lower income children. We started providing breakfast with them because a lot of their families weren’t.”

For a meager entrance fee, the Greene County community can enjoy soup and bread served in hand-crafted bowls and aid the Weekend Food Program, which covers all five school districts in the county and directly benefits food insecure children by providing healthy food over the weekends.

“It’s basically easy to make types of foods so that during the weekend they have something that can tide them over,” said Shindelar. “It’s offered by social works, the school, teachers and parents; basically any adult that cares enough to notice that they’re not performing well because they’re hungry.”

The issue caught the attention of a number of Bonners through their service, and for a second straight year it is bring addressed by the final issue-based project of the semester. Issue-based projects address problems in the community, and Bonners have worked to raise awareness and funds for children in Pittsburgh, suicide prevention and teen dating violence already this semester.

“This will be the last [IBP]. It’s exciting; they’ve been working really hard on this one,” said Bonner coordinator Adrienne Tharp. “This is the second year for IBPs. It’s nice wrapping up another school year and then going into another academic year to look at areas for improvement and growth and ways to continue to build on those.”

Steve Snow, a Waynesburg alumnus, began this particular issue-based project last year. The inaugural event drew a crowd of more than 100 people and raised around $3,600. That money funded 15 percent of expenses for the Weekend Food Program in Greene County for the 2014-15 school year.

“It was extremely successful last year,” said Tharp. “It happens in Pittsburgh and Fayette County. Even with working with several other students, there is still a lot of work that goes into it.”

Students take the lead for facilitating and executing the issue-based projects, which serve as a learning tool and a way to get further involved in the community.

“It’s all student led; my role is to support them and help them through the process,” said Tharp. “It’s been a great experience for them; they get to see some of the challenges of what a lot of staff members go through in trying to organize and plan projects. It’s hard to get people to come to meetings; it’s hard to get people to follow through with projects and assignments and I think it’s been a really great experience to have that opportunity.”

The students have benefitted from contributions from a number of different sources, both on and off campus. Students came together earlier in the semester to help make bowls for the event.

“We had an open bowl-making event at the end of January,” said Shindelar. “We had a lot of students come and I think we made around 100 bowls from that night alone.”

The rest of the bowls for the event, and a number of artistic works for silent auction, come from others in the community.

“There are also about 100 [bowls] we’re estimating that we’re getting from local artisans, including high school students from Uniontown,” said Shindelar. “Artbeat is one of them. They’re local and have really good connections, so they’re reaching out to people for items because we’re having a silent auction.”

The event will take place at building No.10 at the fairgrounds, with soups made by Dan Wagner, Greene County Career and Technology Centers’ culinary arts instructor, and bread provided by Rising Creek Bakery.

Lunch begins at noon, but other occurrences during the event will include a silent auction, live music, a guest speaker, information for other nonprofit organizations that fight hunger in Greene County and bowl-making on site by Waynesburg art students and Andrew Heisey, assistant professor of art.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t know the extent of hunger, but I want everybody to be aware, and also provide them resources to be active,” said Shindelar.

Tickets for the event are $20 on site and $15 dollars in advance, and can be purchased at the Center for Service Leadership Office. Each person attending will walk away with a handmade bowl to remind them of all the empty bowls in Greene County.

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