Notre Dame, Villa Maria, and Malvern teamed up to assist in the operation of the annual event.
Notre Dame and Villa Maria joined Malvern students to help with Empty Bowls this year, along with other changes.
Empty Bowls is an event at Malvern which raises money for the Bethesda Project, an organization that helps the homeless and poor in the Philadelphia area.
Money is raised by a ticket fee to get in, and purchases of bowls that are made in the ceramics studio by anyone in the Malvern community.
Tait McGlinn ’16 said the process of making all the bowls, 1,020 in fact, through open studios brings the Malvern community together.
“It’s a time for alumni, families, and friends to just come in and throw,” McGlinn said. “It’s great to have because a lot of the alumni come back and it is good to see their faces.”
Along with making bowls, another part of the setup included setting up the gym for the actual event. Sam Li ’16, student head of service, explains the work put in by student volunteers to make this happen.
“We’ve had 3 separate days where students from Notre Dame, Villa, and Malvern have been coming after school set things up,” Li said. “Everyone was just working hard.”
Students from Notre Dame and Villa Maria volunteered to help with the event for the first time. Grace Kuroki, one of the student leaders from Villa, enjoyed volunteering her time.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to volunteer with your friends and help serve other people,” Kuroki said. “It means a lot more than just a bowl or soup; it’s helping the homeless.”
A major change this year was that the event was moved from the Dougherty Hall gym to the larger O’Neill center gym. Larry Legner, head of Christian Service, said the change was due to an expected increase in attendance.
“We have the two girls schools teaming up with us and we have more people,” Legner said. “We are not as crowded in as we were over in Dougherty.”
Matthew Miller ’13, a student leader of Empty Bowls 3 years ago, described how the event has grown since he was here.
“It has grown physically,” Miller said. “There is a lot more soup and more bowls, around 1,100 this year, so that has doubled since I’ve been here.”
Ms. Kate Plows, ceramics teacher who runs Empty Bowls at Malvern, said that Villa and Notre Dame were a huge help for the event.
“It was the first year, in the 8 years I’ve been doing this, I had a chance to breathe,” Plows said. “From a logistics standpoint, the student volunteers were amazing.”
Plows said that she is interested in how the partnership with Villa and Notre Dame will grow in the years to come.
“Having the girls involved with the leadership was awesome,” Plows said. “I’d like to explore that partnership further, and see what more we could do together.”
