Local high-school art students in the Northern Hills and Black Hills State University students are making pottery soup bowls and donating them to help a community project. “Empty Bowls” is a soup-kitchen type project designed to address the issue of hunger. At the Empty Bowls get-together community members buy the bowls and fill them with soup. Proceeds are used to help local food banks.
Jerry Rawlings started Empty Bowls. He says the project helps a very basic need.
“In current history it seems that our capitalist culture has created art for the sake of advancing our bank accounts more than for the sake of our communities, our culture, and our society. I feel that this project raises awareness to a plight upon our society – hunger. And here in the United States we should not have that issue,” says Rawlings.
Rawlings says Empty Bowls is more than just a fundraiser to help the hungry.
“Art history gives us testimony that art should be used as a catalyst to stimulate thought and to raise awareness and I feel that “Empty Bowls” fits into that category very well,” says Rawlings.
Empty Bowls takes place Wednesday evening at the Deadwood Social Club where they'll serve a variety of soups. The Deadwood Social Club donates all the soup to the Empty Bowls project.