NORWICH – Between 60 to 70 guests showed up to a special Martin Luther King Jr. Day Luncheon Monday at the Broad Street United Methodist Church. Children from The Place’s youth group, the Norwich Family YMCA’s youth group, as well as Norwich High School students enrolled in SUNY Morrisville Extension’s Liberty Program hosted the luncheon, which represented a local effort to take part in the national Empty Bowls project and to teach Chenango students about giving back to the community.
According to its website, emptybowls.net, the Empty Bowls project is an international grassroots movement striking fear into the heart of hunger, wherever it may lurk. The Empty Bowls project encourages collaboration between educators and craftspeople in an effort to inspire the community to make bowls as well as host a simple community meal of soup and bread. The Empty Bowls meals are free for everyone, although guests are invited to make donations to local food panties.
“It has truly been a community effort to come together and the kids are learning how to care for each other. Caring for one another something that was important for Martin Luther King,” said Morrisville Norwich Campus Early Childhood Development Coordinator Margaret Hoose.
Monday morning before the luncheon, students worked industriously to prepare a vegetable soup for the event. Norwich City Mayor Joseph Maiurano and Morrisville Norwich Campus Dean Marsha L. Cornelius donated pots of homemade chili for the event, and Morrisville Fresh, a college student-run group which utilizes hydroponic methods to grow vegetables, donated salads.
The bowls had already been prepared during the last week of December, by nine Norwich students from the Liberty Program. The Liberty Program students ventured to the Kirkland Art Center in Clinton and created 50 ceramic bowls for Monday’s event. Clay sculptor Vartan Pognosian met up with the students at the art center and volunteered his time as well as his clay to help create the bowls. “We made pinch pots and even had an opportunity to use the wheel,” said  Morrisville Project Staff Associate and Liberty Program coordinator Shelly L. Bartow. “We really have been preparing for this event for a long time,” she added.
Thirty Norwich High School students from the Liberty Program participated in Monday’s event along with nine kids from the YMCA youth group, and another 15 from The Place’s group. College students from Morrisville and members of Americorps also volunteered to help make sure the event ran smoothly.
“This is our first time doing the Empty Bowls project. It’s about giving back to the community, and we thought Martin Luther King Jr. Day was a great day to do it,” said Bartow.
Organizers saw the event as opportunity to teach students about caring, but also as a chance to build the foundations for future collaborations. “The biggest thing for us, is we want our kids to see the value of providing services to the community,” said Bartow. “The Liberty students also had a nice opportunity to work with younger kids,” she added.
Organizers have grown accustomed to receiving positive feedback from the students, many have whom have never had an opportunity to be involved activities such as the Martin Luther King Day luncheon. “Usually if we can connect it back to something they are learning in school, it makes it just that much more powerful,” said Bartow.
“We are trying to help them understand the benefits of working together to build a sense of community as well as partnership between students K through 12,” said Hoose. “Today we did a little fundraising, but it also is the start of a future partnership.”
Organizers said they intended to donate the remainders of the food from the luncheon to the Oxford Soup kitchen.
“I see an additional opportunity to host another luncheon in the future, as well as clean up days in the community,” said Hoose. Organizers also intend to brainstorm with their respective groups to come up with different ideas to get involved.