Members of the Osoyoos Potters Club are busy making bowls for Desert Sun Counselling and Resource Centre’s Empty Bowls Fundraiser. In the front, Darlene Fillion spins a bowl on a potters wheel. Behind are Sandy Summers, the Desert Sun board member chairing the event (left), and potters Megan Byblow, Dianne Hughes, Jim French and Sheila French. The fundraiser will replace the Grand Night, which has been used over the past decade to raise money for Desert Sun. (Richard McGuire photo)
Members of the Osoyoos Potters Club are hard at work making unique ceramic bowls for a fundraising event for Desert Sun Counselling and Resource Centre.
The Empty Bowls Fundraiser, scheduled for Nov. 14, replaces Desert Sun’s A Grand Night, which was Desert Sun’s primary fundraising event for the past decade.
“We decided it was time to change up the fundraising event that we do for Desert Sun,” said Sandy Summers, a Desert Sun board member who is organizing Empty Bowls.
“I was involved in the Empty Bowl fundraiser in Ontario many years ago and always wanted to bring it here to this community,” Summers said.
Desert Sun approached the potters, who agreed to make 200 unique bowls for the event.
Empty Bowls will be held at the Watermark Beach Resort from 6 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14. Tickets are $49 each.
Guests will choose their one-of-a-kind bowl and they’ll go from station to station sampling gourmet soups prepared by some of the area’s top chefs, Summers said.
Several wineries are also donating wine for the event. Firehall Brewery in Oliver is donating craft beer and Faustino Estate Cidery is contributing cider.
Guests will also have artisan bread with their soup.
Empty Bowl events have been done internationally to raise awareness about poverty, Summers said. When guests leave, they take their bowls home to remind them of those who have less.
Unlike the gala A Grand Night, dress for Empty Bowls is casual.
Guests will vote on their favourite soup and at the end of the night the chef with the most votes will be awarded the Golden Ladle.
Jim French, one of the potters making the bowls, said all the bowls start as clay, but some are spun on a potter’s wheel while others are hand built.
The bowls are then fired in a kiln before being sanded and trimmed if necessary. Finally, they are glazed in different colours and fired again at a high temperature that turns the surface to glass.
From start to finish, a bowl may take 10 hours of labour, French said, though when firing time is considered, it may take 25 hours from start to finish.
The decorating and glazing is where the artist really comes through, allowing guests to take home a unique work of art, he said.
Tickets for the Empty Bowls Fundraiser are available online at www.desertsuncounselling.ca or by phone at 250-498-2538.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
