Rather than warming up with hot soup, participants at this year’s Empty Bowls event cooled off on Saturday with an ice cream social.
Empty Bowls is an annual fundraiser for the food program at Outreach United Resource Center, or OUR Center. In partnership with Crackpots Pottery Studio, community members paint and donate bowls of which a select few are auctioned off.
The ice cream social and bowl preview took place Saturday at Flatirons Community Church.
“People seemed to be having a good time. It was obviously a great day to have ice cream,” OUR Center Development Director Elaine Klotz said.
Pre-pandemic, the event took place in March with soup instead of ice cream at Longmont High School. Klotz said with the changes there was a smaller turnout this year.
“It was just a great way to keep the momentum of the event going,” she said. “To be able to have an event again, a little bit modified, but everything’s been modified the last two and a half years, right?”
Even so, OUR Center expects to hit its fundraising goal of $30,000. She said sponsorships were a big help with that.
“With our financial reality, we just weren’t sure if people would be able to give like they had in the past and fortunately they came through for us,” Klotz said. “We have tremendous community support.”
All funds go to support the food program at the Longmont nonprofit, which has seen an uptick in community need since the pandemic. The online auction ended Tuesday.
