By AMY STRAUSS
astrauss@phoenixvillenews.com

Amateurs and professionals alike are currently working to create handmade bowls in preparation for the third annual Empty Bowls dinner scheduled Fri., Nov. 13 from 5-8 p.m. at Artisan's Gallery & Cafée on Bridge Street.

"The Empty Bowls fundraiser allows the community to take something away from an event that is a constant reminder of the hunger going on locally and nationally," said Joann Miller, the Development Coordinator of Phoenixville Area's Community Services (PACS) — the organization hosting the upcoming event.

The Empty Bowls project, developed in 1990 by a high school art teacher in Michigan looking to help his students raise money to combat hunger, has evolved from a simple class project to a community-wide fundraising meal.

With local organizations and schools, including Chester Springs Studio, Phoenixville Area High School, Miss Betty's Day Camp, Renaissance Academy and Malvern Prep School, offering a supply of sculpted bowls, guests are served a simple meal of soup and bread, and then are invited to keep the bowl as a reminder of hunger in the world.

The local event, hosted at Artisans

Cafée, first began when co-owner and potter Richard Holck fashioned a number of bowls, as well as reached out to varying artistic friends in search of an additional supply of pottery. With a need to address issues of hunger throughout the town, Holck contacted PACS and birthed the town's first participation in the Empty Bowls' project to end hunger and assist with food insecurities.

The structure of the project — guests grab a homemade bowl and select one of three soups to fill its insides with — may be symbolic of an actual soup kitchen, yet that is the point.

With funds raised from last year's Empty Bowls fundraiser, in addition to PACS' other Holidays from Hunger events, including a Gingerbread House Contest (to be held this year Sat., Dec. 5) and Breakfast with Santa (to be held Sat., Dec. 12), 196 area families were supplied with food last December.

"Everyone we help is in desperate need, and the need increases this time of the year," said PACS' Executive Director Carol Berger. „[The need] is so much higher than in the past. The way that economics have hit people, we are reaching out even more, including those who are not typically the people that would come for help."

PACS, located on Church Street, manages an in-house food pantry, donating nearly „¾-ton of food each week" to those of the area in need. Their services also provide more than „180 families with over $33,000 in direct aid for essential needs of heat, housing, medicine and electricity," in addition to offering referrals and follow-up references to support transformation within community's residents to brighter futures.

All of the center's programs' proceeds, including the upcoming participation of the Empty Bowls dinner, as well as their recent release of a discount saving card that allows you to regularly save at local businesses (also available for purchase at the event), will supplement area families to not go hungry through the holidays.

PACS continues to accept donations of pottery to be used for the event. All hand-constructed bowls are glazed and ready for soup splashes, although paper products will be available for those attendees wishing to keep their bowls splatter-free.

Attendance to the Empty Bowls dinner is a $20 donation, and tickets are encouraged to be obtained ahead of time from the center's office or by visiting www.pacsphx.org.