The annual Empty Bowls fundraiser will be held on Saturday, Nov. 22, beginning at 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., at Fredonia’s Wheelock School gymnasium. Approximately 1,200 custom bowls will be available for purchase at Wheelock, with proceeds to be donated to combat food insecurity in the community through local food pantries.

The event is organized by Ron Nasca, the owner of Mudslingers Ceramics Gallery in Fredonia. A handful of professional potters, including the Chautauqua County Society of Artists, will be making handmade bowls to be featured at the event. Local art students from the Fredonia and Brocton school districts have created custom pieces for sale, as well. The clay is provided to the students at no cost to the schools.

At this year’s Empty Bowls event, for the first time, small plates will also be available for purchase. The custom plates will be smaller than a traditional dinner plate, ranging from salad and sandwich plates to much smaller trinkets. Nasca wanted to avoid saturating the market with custom bowls, so including small plates made sense as another way to enhance the event.

“It was a suggestion, and we thought, sure, why not,” Nasca said.

Prices vary in increments of $5, with each potter setting the price for their work. Cash, credit cards, and checks are all accepted. The event provides coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and cookies for guests to enjoy. There will also be live music at the event.

Last year, the Empty Bowls fundraiser at Wheelock, coupled with an Empty Bowls event in Jamestown, raised a total of $31,500 to address food insecurity. Dating back nearly two decades, Empty Bowls has raised approximately $415,000 countywide. Nasca targets the half-million mark in the next few years.

“It’s crazy. It’s truly amazing,” Nasca said.

Beginning in the early 1990s, Empty Bowls fundraisers were held in various stats across the country to support local communities battling food insecurity. The event began in Michigan, but has expanded across the U.S., with notable events in West Virginia, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, and even in Houston, Texas.

Locally, the tradition began in 2007 at St. John’s Church on Central Avenue in Dunkirk. Marvin Bjurlin, a former ceramics teacher at SUNY Fredonia, is the one who first brought the concept of Empty Bowls to northern Chautauqua County. Bjurlin was a graduate assistant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when John Hartom, a high school teacher, started the first Empty Bowls event in 1990.

Several years ago, the city of Jamestown began its own Empty Bowls event, organized by Rev. Luke Fodor of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. This year’s event will take place at St. Luke’s on Dec. 6, on the corner of Fourth Street and Main Street in Jamestown, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.

For his own custom pieces for sale at Empty Bowls, Nasca has used historic local clay from Dunkirk, Fredonia, and Sheridan. Nasca has previously used 200-year-old clay from when the Darwin R. Barker Historical Museum was originally constructed, as well as clay from the Haven and Kenyon Pottery site in Sheridan. This year, Nasca will be displaying bowls made from historic clay from Jamestown.

Fredonia’s Empty Bowls event this year is supported by several community sponsors, including Lake Shore Savings and Loan, Community Bank, Southern Chautauqua Federal Credit Union, the Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation, and the Beaver Club in Fredonia, among others.

“All these people have been supporting us for all this time,” Nasca said. “It’s wonderful.”