Empty Bowls, Full Hearts returns to Brookwood
Brookwood School will host a dinner and art gallery event featuring student- made clay bowls this Friday — but this time, the children’s handiwork will serve for more than mere art appreciation. Bowls made primarily by Lower School students, with the help of art teachers Lindsey Bailey and Maureen Harrer, are being donated by the young artists for the Empty Bowls, Full Hearts event at Brookwood on Friday, Feb. 2. This nationally known service project, which originated in Texas, has one exclusive goal — to fight hunger.
For the second year in a row, older Brookwood students have come together to plan the event in hopes of helping to make others aware that hunger is also an issue at home in Thomasville.
“This is a student-driven, student-led service project,” said AUison Harrell, Brookwood’s school counselor. “We’re really trying to shepherd the servant heart.”
The simple meal served at Empty Bowls, Full Hearts is meant to remind attendees of the hunger in our area, as well as the hunger that surrounds the world internationally The soup will be prepared by students, with the aid of resident chef Libby Howell, a first-grade teacher at Brookwood. The menu planned for the evening will include chicken and rice soup and vegetarian lasagna soup; bread will be donated by Flowers Foods.
Proceeds raised will go to Backpack Buddies, a local ministry that provides meals for almost 900 hungry children in Thomas County each weekend. At last year’s Empty Bowls event, Brookwood raised around $3,000 for the ministry.
A donation of $10 per meal is encouraged — the amount that feeds a child for a month in the Backpack Buddies Program.
The gallery of bowls will be on display beginning at 3 p.m. in the multi-purpose room in Brookwood’s Beverly Athletic Center. Soup will be served in an open house from 5-7 p.m., concurrent with a night of basketball; the Brookwood Warriors will play Tiftarea’s Panthers in junior varsity, varsity girls and varsity boys’ games.
“Our kids really feel strongly about supporting a local mission,” Harrell said. “I just love that it’s students serving students.”
Brookwood School
Located in Thomasville, GA, Brookwood School is a private school for grades JK-12. Students benefit from a challenging academic program, fine and performing arts, competitive athletics, and a wide selection of extracurricular activities.