Empty Bowls Glazing Days at Sleeping Lady Resort to begin

Preparations are underway for the annual Upper Valley Empty Bowls Festival! The fund-raising event, which helps support Leavenworth’s Community Cupboard Food Bank and art programs in local area schools kicks off Friday, Jan. 19 from noon-to-8 p.m. at the Woodpecker Room at the Sleeping Lady Mountain Resort. Glazing continues, 10 a.m.-to-8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20 through Tuesday, Jan. 23. Jan. 20 and 21 are Family Painting Days. All ages are welcome on those days, including families with children ages 13 and under. No experience is necessary, and volunteers are on hand to offer advice. While at the glazing days, be sure to visit the table of local artists at work decorating beautiful bowls for the Empty Bowls Art Bowl Auction in March.
Tickets prices remain the same as past years: $15 to decorate a bowl, which includes a ticket for the soup supper. Family rates are also available, at $50 for a family of four. Soup only tickets are also available for $5. Tickets to the soup supper usually sell out during Glazing Days week, so don’t delay purchasing your tickets to this amazing community event.
The Upper Valley Empty Bowls Festival is celebrating its’ 22nd year in Leavenworth, working to help feed the hungry in our community, strengthen community and celebrate the arts. All proceeds from the Empty Bowls Festival are donated to purchase food at our local Community Cupboard food bank, and to fund small art grants to support local youth arts programs. The Community Cupboard provides residents of the Upper Valley with food provisions each month, and is one of the few food banks in the state open six days a week. Work for the festival is a labor of love by a small army of volunteers and begins months in advance, when local potters begin to throw handmade ceramic bowls. The public is then invited to paint bowls during the glazing days, after which the potters fire each piece. Local artists contribute their talents to decorate bowls to be auctioned online March 7-21 and others to be given away in raffles at the Artist Showcase & Gala Reception on March 4 and at the Soup Supper in the Festhalle on Thursday, March 22. The soup supper is the final event of the Empty Bowls celebration, feeding over 700 members of the community at the Leavenworth Festhalle, where participants look forward to collecting their finished bowl and enjoying a simple meal with family and friends. Food for this event is donated by local restaurants, bakeries and grocery stores in our community.
The Empty Bowls Festival committee is proud to have so many local potters, artists and community members as active participants and supporters of this annual event. Please join us as we raise awareness and consideration of the hunger (symbolized by empty bowls) that exists not only around the world, but also in our own community.
For more information, go to www.uvmend.org, or call the UVMEND office at 548-0408.