Empty Bowls fundraiser decorates almost 1,500 ceramics for food insecurity
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Over 1,500 colorful, handcrafted ceramic bowls were decorated at the Everson Museum of Art at the Interreligious Food Consortium’s annual Empty Bowls fundraiser Friday.
The IFC has held the Empty Bowls event annually since 2004 t0 raise money for food insecurity prevention in the area, through the sale of handmade ceramic bowls. The fundraiser also collaborated with Clayscapes Pottery Inc, Syracuse University and the Everson Museum of Art.
“It does foster a sense of community,” Andrew Seymour, who works at Clayscapes Pottery Inc., said. “We have all of these people here that love ceramics and bowls, but (we are) also making sure we’re reaching out to the less fortunate and helping those communities thrive.”
Founded in 1982, the IFC works to serve under-resourced food pantries and other facilities including schools, churches and libraries across Onondaga County. The IFC relies on monetary donations from local organizations and individual contributors. Their only fundraiser each year is the Empty Bowls event, IFC Executive Director Kate Artessa said.
“It’s great to be a part of the community that cares about people who are less fortunate, and we all learn from some of the pottery that’s exhibited,” Judith Schipper, a potter at Clayscapes Pottery, said. “People share some of their talents regarding their artistic choices.”
After moving to Syracuse eight years ago, local resident Alison Altafi attends the Empty Bowls event every year.
“My whole kitchen is these bowls,” Altafi said. “This year, I’m specifically making sure they stack.”
Altafi’s parents, who are from Oklahoma City, usually fly out for Empty Bowls, but couldn’t this year. She said they’re trying to bring an Empty Bowls event to Oklahoma in the future, since they care so much about the one in Syracuse.
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Empty Bowls originally began in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, back in 1990 by high school teacher John Hartom. Over 35 years later, Empty Bowls has events in almost every state, according to its website.
Due to a lack of supermarkets in Syracuse, many areas in the city are classified as food deserts, or locations without access to affordable, nutritious food. As of 2024, Syracuse had the fourth-highest child poverty rate in the United States for cities with over 100,000 people, with 40.9% of children living below the poverty line, according to census data released in September 2025.
“Food insecurity is an issue everywhere, but seeing stuff like this shows the community that there’s more power than we realize,” Gladymir Louis, the lead security guard at Everson Museum of Art, said. “We’ll help each other, this shows that it takes a village.”
Admission for the event was free to all attendees, and customers could pick out one of the ceramic bowls for $25. Local restaurants including Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Pastabilities and Santengelo’s Restaurant donated cups of soup for attendees that purchased bowls. The IFC received all proceeds raised at the event.
Empty Bowls is also a great way to advertise local restaurants across the county, giving customers the opportunity, Artessa said.
On Sept. 11, The Everson Museum of Art also hosted the Empty Bowls Decorate-A-Thon, where participants could prepare handmade ceramic bowls for free with museum entry. All finished bowls were then sold at the Empty Bowls event.
Clayscapes Pottery Inc., a pottery-supply store on Fayette Street, has been an active partner of the IFC since the Empty Bowls event began, Seymour said. The store supplied over 1,100 ceramic bowls for the event, which he said took almost a year to create.
Students and faculty of the Ceramics Program at SU also supplied handmade bowls for the event from throwing events that took place on campus last year, Seymour said. SU also provided free transportation for students on the day of the event.
The handmade bowls consisted of different shapes, sizes and colors, giving customers a variety of options to choose from.
After six years of working with IFC, Artessa looks into her cupboard to see a collection of bowls that remind her of the event, as well as the persistent issue of food insecurity nationwide.
“The empty bowl has become a metaphor for the power people feel when they help erase world hunger,” Hartom said on the Empty Bowls website.
