VAN BUREN (KFSM) – A local high school is holding a fundraiser on Thursday (Feb.16) to help make sure students in the district have enough to eat.
The 8th annual Empty Bowls fundraiser takes place at Van Buren High school inside their cafeteria on Thursday night. Each person at the event will get to pick out a handmade bowl to fill with stew.
All the bowls are handcrafted by the students, and participants can take the bowls home after they're done. High school students have been working for months to get the bowls ready for the big night. Each bowl is unique, and you’ll have more than 200 to choose from.
Organizers said the event grows every year, and last year it raised more than $3,000. The money raised stays in the Van Buren School District in a program called Meals for Kids.
The program gives kids a backpack full of food to take home every Friday during the school year.
“Usually these students have very limited food at home, so when they go home on Friday they don’t have very much food,” said Kara Holland, art teacher at Van Buren High School. "So this provides them food for the weekend."
Volunteers will be serving homemade beef stew and homemade bread from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 per person. They’ll also have handmade quilted table runners for sale that were donated by the Bell Pointe Quilters Guild. All those proceeds will be given to the Meals for Kids program.