PUTNEY — Empty Bowls - a fun and family-friendly evening celebrating local potters, restaurants, and businesses coming together to raise vital funds for the food-shelf program at Groundworks Collaborative - will take place Saturday, Oct. 12.
The 16th annual dinner, at Landmark College, will benefit the food shelf program at Groundworks Collaborative, now known as Foodworks.
Diners choose a handmade bowl to keep from one of hundreds of local potters. Soup from any of roughly 20 area restaurants will be served in that bowl.
The meal is rounded out with local bread, yogurt, cheese, and apples.
Last year - through the support of sponsors, diners, and those who could not attend but purchased bowls - the dinner raised more than $32,000.
This year, organizers say they hope to better that figure, as Groundworks moved its food shelf program to a new and more accessible location opened in August to 141 Canal St., the former home of Domino's Pizza.
Groundworks expects to serve at least 10 percent more of the community's food insecure families and individuals.
Foodworks is the region's most heavily used food shelf program, providing supplemental food to upwards of 1,000 people each month.
In the new space, designed to feel more like a neighborhood grocery store, patrons of Foodworks may fully “shop” the space once each month and are encouraged to come back weekly for additional produce and bread.
Tickets for both the 5 and 6:30 p.m. seatings of the dinner are now on sale at the Brattleboro Food Co-op, Everyone's Books, and the Shoe Tree in Brattleboro, and the Putney Food Co-op, as well at GroundworksVT.org/EVENTS.
Tickets are $30 ($25 in advance), $15 for ages 7–15, and free for 6 and younger. For $25, Groundworks can provide food for a family of five for one month.