June 18, 2003

Empty bowls feed families

Oryana sells bowls to raise money for fresh food project

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

      Instead of getting presents for their birthday, Oryana Natural Foods Market is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month by helping needy families.
      The store is hosting the Empty Bowls Project throughout the month, selling bowls created by local artists and filling them with soup. Served with a slice of bread, the proceeds from the Empty Bowls Project will benefit the Fresh Food Partnership, a new organization that brings produce to needy families.
      With 146 bowls sold so far - the majority for $10 - the program has raised nearly $1,600 for the Fresh Food Partnership. These funds will help bring a variety of locally grown fruits and vegetables into 26 food pantries around the region.
      "We are in the process of coordinating the first round of purchasing by volunteers," said Joe VandenMeulen, executive director of the Land Information Access Association and founder of the Fresh Food Partnership. "Most of our purchases will be made at farm markets at fair market value because the project is to help local farmers as well as people in need."
      "Some farmers are donating food, too, and that is very kind of them," he noted.
      Promoting community by helping both local farmers and the poor dovetails perfectly with Oryana's mission, said general manager Bob Struthers. And what better way to celebrate the organization's birthday, which is officially today, than with the month-long Empty Bowls Project?
      "This speaks to Oryana's mission in that it is definitely about community and community spirit," said Struthers, noting that Oryana is donating the soup and bread for the project. "The whole idea of community and the local economy are very important aspects of what Oryana wants to promote."
      The Fresh Food Partnership began earlier this year. It brings together area food pantry members of the Northwest Food Coalition plus Michigan State University Extension offices from five counties. The United Way is also helping the partnership manage the project, find funding sources and recruit volunteers.
      The idea for the partnership sparked last summer. VandenMeulen's wife was taking extra produce from a community supported agriculture (CSA), the Sweeter Song Farm in Leelanau County, to the Women's Resource Center shelter.
      "Then she started buying eggs and adding that to what she brought," VandenMeulen recalled. "Then people started calling us at home and saying that if fresh food was such a rare commodity in food pantries, they could help."
      The concept grew and in late February, the Land Information Access Association formed the partnership under its non-profit umbrella. Just a few months old, organizers of the Fresh Food Partnership have an ambitious goal for this growing season.
      "We hope that 10,000-15,000 people will be affected by it," VandenMeulen said. "The potential is quite substantial."
      Oryana member and potter Robin Nance conceived of the Empty Bowls Project as a way to help Fresh Food Partnership. The past organizer of an Empty Bowls Project downstate, she believed it would be an excellent way to promote the co-operative economic values embodied by Oryana.
      Artists in the Northern Michigan Potters and Sculptors Guild also were eager to help. Nance helped organize work bees this spring where guild members gathered to make bowls. Contributions came from as far away as Charlevoix and Boyne City. She noted that bowls keep appearing for the project, usually just when she needs them to keep the shelves at Oryana stocked with every color, style and shape of bowl.
      "[Guild members] have contributed a lot of beautiful bowls and there's been so many styles, even different styles within the same potter," Nance said. "I get home and sometimes there's a box of bowls on my porch and I get to go through the box. It is so exciting."
      Potter Julie Chai of Elmwood Township has made 49 bowls for the project, spurred by the opportunity to help others and share her work.
      "It's been a wonderful excuse to make some really sweet bowls that people would enjoy," she said. "I think that is what it is about: the co-op and the artists doing it together."
      For more information on the Fresh Food Partnership, see their web site at www.freshfoodpartnership.org. For more information on the Empty Bowls Project, call Oryana Natural Foods Market at 947-0191 or visit the store at 260 E. Tenth St.