Jan 24, 2018 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read

Think about how you feel as lunchtime approaches: Your stomach nags you to the point where you can’t concentrate on much of anything else until you fill it.

For many of us, a trip to the refrigerator or perhaps the closest restaurant will take care of business. But that certainly is not an option for everyone, even in the South Hills.

“So many people are only a paycheck away from being food insecure,” Mt. Lebanon resident Sheryl Cohen said. “All it takes is an illness or a job loss. It doesn’t even have to be a major catastrophe.”

She and Stacey Reibach, also of Mt. Lebanon, co-chair Bethel El Congregation of the South Hills’ Food for Thought initiative, to raise awareness about hunger and to help keep people fed.

Their latest endeavor in that regard is Empty Bowls South Hills, scheduled for noon to 2 p.m. Feb. 4 at Beth El, 1900 Cochran Road, Scott Township. The event is affiliated with the Empty Bowls Project, an international crafts-based effort to end hunger.

Adults who attend will partake in a simple meal of bread and soup – in this case, a choice of vegetable, tomato or mushroom barley, provided by Deena Ross and her Deena’s Dishes business – for a $20 donation, and they get to keep the bowl in which the soup is served, as a reminder of ones that remain empty throughout the world.

The bowls are supplied at a substantial discount by paint-it-yourself ceramics studio Color Me Mine. Owner Allison Rhodes supported the first Empty Bowls South Hills, in 2016, in a similar manner.

Volunteers have been painting bowls for the coming event since early last year.

“Color Me Mine has been amazing to work with, in terms of just letting people drop in,” Reibach said, and by providing boxes of materials for “portable parties” at various locations.

For example, a group of Beth El members took supplies to the South Hills Interfaith Movement’s Prospect Park Family Center in Whitehall, which primarily serves a population of refugee immigrants, for an evening of painting.

“A teenager was there making a bowl, and I said, ‘Is this something your friends would like to do?’ And she said, ‘Sure,'” Reibach recalled.

She spread the word among people she knows, who in turn sponsored bowls for 50 youngsters, and she returned to Prospect Park for two more painting sessions involving sixth- and seventh-grade girls.

“You had people from all these countries, all sitting together and being supportive,” she said. “One of them was becoming a citizen the next day, and they were so excited for her.

Their bowls will be among those offered for participants to take home from the Feb. 4 event, which benefits food pantries in the South Hills and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

For more information, visit bethelcong.org/events/empty-bowls or call Beth El Congregation at 412-561-1168.

About Empty Bowls

John Hartom, co-founder of the Empty Bowls Project with his wife, Lisa Blackburn, writes about the origins:

“The Empty Bowls Project started as what we thought would be a one-time luncheon to raise money for my school district food drive. That was in the fall of 1990.

“We asked my ceramics students at Bloomfield Hills Lahser High School in Detroit if they were willing to make 120 bowls, enough for the entire school staff. They accepted the challenge enthusiastically and set about throwing, decorating, and firing the bowls.

“On the day of the event, students set up a long table to display the bowls, served soup and bread to staff members as they selected a bowl to use, collected a $5 donation from each guest, and smiled broadly as they saw their own bowl selected.

“As the meal was drawing to a close, my wife shared some basic information about hunger in the Detroit area and then, to the surprise of the guests, we asked them to keep the bowls that they had selected as a reminder of all the empty bowls in the world.

“The room fell silent. They looked at their bowls, then at one another, and then again at their bowls. People clutched the bowls to their chests. Some wept. We knew that something very powerful had happened and that we had both the opportunity and the responsibility to see that the magic of that moment not be allowed to end.”