Led by Upper Campus ceramics teacher Crystal Davis, three Ojai Valley School ceramics students recently contributed to a long-running campaign by artisans and others to battle hunger in the local community.
The group provided ceramic pieces to Bowl of Thanks, a fundraiser for Food Share of Ventura County organized by the Ventura County Potter’s Guild.
Ms. Davis – along with Ceramics 2 students Alissa Neuron, Kyla Ditchfield, and Devon Solberg – contributed 17 of the more than 900 handmade ceramics pieces donated by local potters to the event, which took place Nov. 8 and 9 at the Ventura Harbor Village.
The event raised more than $21,000 for Food Share, enough to provide 60,000 meals for local families, according to former OVS ceramics teacher Jody Cooper, who is a member of the potter’s guild and who was responsible for setting up this year’s Bowl of Thanks event.
“The weekend was a huge success, and we couldn’t have done it without you,” Mrs. Cooper told the OVS group. “Please extend the guild’s thanks to all the students who contributed their work.”
Bowl of Thanks is a spinoff of a worldwide campaign known as Empty Bowls, which was started as a way for artists to raise money and awareness in support of food banks, soup kitchens and other organizations fighting hunger.
For Empty Bowls, artists make and donate bowls for sale at charitable events. The finished products are then used as serving pieces for a fundraising meal of soup and bread. Contributing guests get to keep the empty bowl as a reminder of all the other empty bowls that need filling.
This Empty Bowls foundation was set up in 1990, and Mrs. Cooper used to take members of her ceramics classes to the Santa Barbara chapter of that event for many years, even after she stopped teaching at the Upper Campus.
Many similar but smaller initiatives have been launched since Empty Bowls started, including Bowl of Thanks which was launched four years ago by the Ventura Potters Guild.
Ms. Davis, who also serves as Director of High School for OVS, said she has long talked to her students about opportunities to help those in need, and specifically how Bowl of Thanks allows students to complete work that is meaningful to them to benefit others.
“It has always been my mission to try to bring those two worlds together as much as possible, and to get us to see ourselves as a single community that has a responsibility to support the whole community, not just ourselves and not just our self-interest,” Ms. Davis said.
Ashley Kocijan, administrative assistant to the Director of High School, attended the Bowl of Thanks event with her family. While her initial intent was to find and purchase bowls made by OVS students, Mrs. Kocijan said she ended up buying three random bowls to support the Food Share cause.
She didn’t know until she got home that one of those bowls was produced by OVS sophomore Alissa Neuron.
“The part that stood out was all the families,” said Mrs. Kocijan, who now has Alissa’s bowl proudly on display in the front office. “It was nice to see families with their kids and teenagers, so they could be involved and educated in what’s going on in their community and help support.”
The OVS student ceramicists feel the same way.
Sophomore Kyla Ditchfield said she produced four bowls for Bowl of Thanks. While the pieces were produced as part of a class assignment, Kyla said she felt great knowing that she was contributing to a larger cause.
“In ceramics we are always busy making a lot of things,” Kyla said. “But in this case, it was great that we were able to make something that had purpose and to know that we were doing good.”