By Jennifer Vazquez—

The second annual Empty Bowls Project consisted of three parts: the Bowl Making Workshop took place on November 6 from 9 a.m.- 6 p.m. in the Gilligan Student Union Building (GSUB) in multi-purpose room (MPR) A; the Bowl Glazing Workshop on November 13 from 2 p.m.-7 p.m. in MPR B; and the Empty Bowls Dinner on November 27 from 4 p.m.-7 p.m. at the Gothic Lounge in Hepburn Hall.

The second annual Empty Bowls Project was once again hosted by the Art Therapy Association.

The purpose of the three-part project was to raise money for Saint Mary’s Food Pantry in Jersey City. Students made bowls to later be glazed and used for the Empty Bowls dinner; the bowls were a symbol for those who are going hungry, who literally have empty bowls.

The room for the Bowl Making Workshop looked like a high school ceramics class; students surrounded four tables covered with brown paper atop paper protected floors, playing with clay as if they were five-years-old again. Clay and water splattered everywhere and students of all majors joked about how much their bowls sucked. It smelled like what I always thought a 17th century Italian artist’s studio would smell like.

To my surprise I was energetically greeted by the club’s petite, big-eyed President, Joanna Carvalho, 31, Art Therapy major from Portugal, now residing in Paramus. I always thought she looked like a pixie—you know, if they actually existed and all that.

“I helped last time. This is the first time I organized it,” said Carvalho.

With all the bowls showing themselves off on the back table, it was clear that the event had a lot of people traffic. “People have been coming in and out since 10am,” she added.

With each new conversation, I could see that students were impressed with the event.

“You get different people from different majors—it’s not just art majors. Plus, it’s for a good cause,” said Panida Suwannawisut, 21, BA Painting/Drawing major from Hackensack.

“You get to express yourself, be creative, meet new people, and get your hands messy; and it’s a great break after the storm,” said Devang Solanki, 22, Criminal Justice major from Jersey City.

Completely elated by the first workshop, the next week I made my way to the Bowl Glazing Workshop. Once again, I was greeted by Carvalho. A bit disgruntled with the workload, she ran back and forth helping students, washing brushes, and stressing like a good president should.

The always helpful club Treasurer, Omar Monsif, 23, BA Ceramics major from Egypt, now residing in Jersey City, taught me how to glaze bowls; I quickly glazed my bowl, a seaweed color by the way, and headed off to class. Like the previous one, this workshop was free to all guests.

The third event, The Empty Bowls Dinner, was the anticipated bread and butter of the project—there was a lot of that to eat. A small donation of $5 got me unlimited soup, bread, and water, courtesy of Gourmet Dining, and any bowl of my choosing to take home. Talk about incentives!

Yes, we actually made bowls for people to literally eat and drink out of. For all those squeamish, picky eaters that felt weird about eating off of random, hand-made bowls, there were plastic bowls. Also, that picky eater was me.

I walked into the Gothic Lounge around 6 p.m. and was surprised to see a good number of people scattered throughout tables, laughing and having soup.

“We had a lot of bumps in the road and it didn’t stop me,” she said. “After about 1 p.m. it was crazy, you couldn’t get a seat at a table,” said Carvalho

The club raised exactly $425, beating last year’s amount of approximately $300. Obviously, Carvalho did something right. Former Art Therapy Association President Erica Gramp-Cerutti, 34, NJCU alumna from Montclair, had this to say:

“I love seeing how this event has grown; so much more collaboration between clubs. I’m very proud of Joanna. She carried the torch and helped my baby grow.”

For this year’s Empty Bowls Project, Art Therapy Association collaborated with an impressive 14 different clubs, organizations, and departments, a big jump from four co-sponsors at last year’s Empty Bowls; quite a feat for one of the newer organizations under SGO.

“There should be more events like this in the future,” said Kristina Valera, 20, sociology major from Bayonne. “The pottery thing is genius. They have to do this again next year.”

“It’s probably one of the better events at NJCU,” said Emanuel Alvarez, 28, Sociology major from Union City. “People actually commit to these things if they get a lot out of this, and they do. The school could make this a huge deal.”

Interactive, creative, and charitable events like this might just be the only way to get people moving and active on campus.

After the event, all the bowls are stored and used for next year. If you didn’t attend The Empty Bowls Dinner, don’t sweat it! You can be sure to expect the same project next year.