The soup bowls were made by local potter Carrie Darrah and decorated by local volunteers coordinated by Kris Gullikson.
Jayla Kaufmann pauses for a photo while working on the border around the top of the bowl to complement her lizard. This bowl along with 84 other bowls will be sold for $25 each with soup.
SEELEY LAKE - Since 2000, the Soup Bowl Fundraiser has raised more than $31,000 for the Seeley-Swan Community Food Bank. Coupled with Alpine Artisan's Loon & Fish Festival and started by Swan Valley Potter Bob Korn, the event returns Saturday, Aug. 21. The bowls go on sale starting at 10 a.m. at the Festival sales table in the West Wing of the Seeley Lake Community Foundation building. Soup will be served across the parking lot at Mission Bible Fellowship beginning at 11 a.m.
Korn said the idea came from the international 'Empty Bowl Project' that was started in the early 1990s by a pottery guild. It is a grassroots effort by artists and crafts people in cities and towns across the country to feed the hungry in their communities.
Korn decided it would be a nice project for the Seeley-Swan Valley to support the local Food Bank. He and his wife Ruth introduced the first "Soup Bowl Benefit" in 2000. Korn donated his time and material to make 100 bowls. Alpine Artisan members decorated the bowls and local businesses donated the soup. This continued through 2013 when the Loon & Fish Festival took a hiatus.
With the return of the Festival in 2019, Korn came out of retirement to help bring the Soup Bowl Fundraiser back. He teamed up with Seeley Lake ceramicist Carrie Darrah of Obsession Pottery to make the bowls. Darrah knew about the "Empty Bowls Project" and participated with other potters in a similar fundraiser in Helena.
"I was really excited to see it done in Seeley Lake," said Darrah. "It's a good cause and we had a lot of fun."
Darrah is continuing the tradition again this year providing 85 bowls for the Food Bank Soup Bowl Lunch. Artist Kris Gullikson coordinated the volunteers to decorate and glaze the bowls. Local restaurants again donated gallons of homemade soup.
The handcrafted bowls sell for $25 with soup. It is $15 for the soup only. Mission Bible Church and Food Bank volunteers are serving the soup.
AAI Program Director Jenny Rohrer wrote, "Remember, the bowls sell out fast!"
Reader Comments(0)