Supporting the Empty Bowls Project
Senior Quinn Macdonald wrote the following story and took the photo about a partnership between St. Johnsbury Academy and Northeast Kingdon Community Action (NECKA) for a fundraiser.
When I approached the Morse Arts Center, almost all the lights were off except for the front lobby and the pottery studio. I was the third person to arrive, but soon thereafter, others entered the large glass doors with smiles on their faces. I immediately noticed the beauty of our community. Nobody was obligated to be there, but everyone who entered wanted to be. The group of faculty members accepted an invitation to lend their time and talent to support “Soup’s On!” a fundraiser for the Empty Bowls Project.
Giving back is embedded in St. Johnsbury Academy; we have multiple traditions that give back, including the Walk for a Healthy Community, food drives throughout the year, and Sophomore Stewardship Day. A part of the Academy’s mission is to help students realize
they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Traditions like these help support the needs of people within the Northeast Kingdom and help realize the mission of SJA.
This project started when Michael Chatterley, St. Johnsbury Academy Fine Arts Department Chair, ceramics teacher, and celebrated artist, was approached by NEKCA. This organization aims to help address poverty in the Northeast Kingdom. NEKCA hoped Mr. Chatterley would be able to provide bowls for the fundraiser, held earlier this month at Wandering Vine in St. Johnsbury. The Empty Bowls Project was established to help end hunger and showcase the work of local artists. Mr. Chatterley was eager to help. He threw (a pottery term for created) 50 bowls and emailed Academy faculty and staff to ask for their assistance in glazing them on two different nights. The community was eager to bring their creativity and support to the project! After the bowls were glazed, they were delivered to Wandering Vine. To raise money, community members purchased tickets to enjoy a meal and, at its conclusion, take the bowl home with them.
For Mr. Chatterley, giving back is personal. He said supporting NEKCA in this was an easy yes; he’d been helped in every community he ever lived in and wanted to give back now. I asked him what he hoped people struggling with food insecurity could understand or feel when they learned about this event, and he replied, “There are people that care and are here to help.”
I was honored to work alongside the other volunteers who showed up on the first night. I picked a beautiful bowl and sat down next to Mrs. Ruggles, a proctor in the Cramton Dormitory. Mrs. Ruggles explained that the proctors in Cramton were supporting the Empty
Bowl Project as a group because they believe, “At different points in our lives we all need a little help – it doesn’t mean we’re there forever, it just means at that moment in time.”
Ms. Kramer, a math teacher and new member of the SJA community, said that giving back to the community was important to her. Ms. Kramer said, “More people probably than you would assume are also struggling, so reaching out and asking for help and accepting help
that is available is nothing to be ashamed of.”
As the school’s headmaster, Dr. Howell, shared in late August, we are all a part of facing the world and making it better, and we are lucky to have faculty who model that for us each and every day.
