Our Empty Bowls event in the Cariboo is usually organized solely by the Potter’s Guild as a one night, in person event. With COVID-19, they still wanted to run the event but they were not sure how to move forward and still follow the guidelines. Williams Lake is a small city with a population of about 12,000 and so many organizations are closely tied to one another through spouses. The Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society (that’s us) President is Bill Lloyd and his wife, Lesley Lloyd is a member of the Potter’s Guild. After some discussion about the concerns they were having, we decided that it would be a great event for us to get involved in. It meets our mandate of education around food security and zero-waste. We then teamed up with two businesses with similar goals and came up with the format for the event.
The restaurants were willing to host the event by stocking the bowls for the month of March. This made it easy for people to choose their bowl without gathering people all at once or on one particular day/location. The fundraiser was so successful that we had trouble keeping the locations stocked to keep up with demand! In total we raised $3220.00 which was divided between our two food banks, the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul. Here are a couple of articles with photos from our local paper.
https://www.wltribune.com/community/williams-lake-potters-give-back-with-empty-bowls-fundraiser/
I am happy to provide you with any additional information, if I forgot anything!
Have a great day!
Amber