[GP-Eldorado-n] EMPTY BOWLS

[Michael Borenstein]

 El Dorado Peace and Justice Community
   Contact: Diana Stauffer
   530 642 1120
   October 5, 2007

   As we’re about to enter the holiday season, a time for gathering with 
families and friends to share good food and afternoon football, we might 
consider the plight of those folks less fortunate than ourselves.

The facts are staggering: every four seconds someone in the 
world dies of hunger; according to the World Bank; well over 500 million 
people in Asia, Africa and Latin America are living in “absolute poverty;” every
year, 15 million people die of hunger.And the effects of hunger aren’t 
limited to the Third World; one out of every eight children in America
go to bed hungry.

Seventeen years ago a high school art teacher in Michigan – looking for a way to
help his students raise money to support a food drive – came up with an idea.He
devised a class project where his students made ceramic bowls for a fund raising
meal.Guests were served bread and soup –in the student-made bowls - and were
invited to keep their bowl as a reminder of hunger in the world.

   On Saturday, November 10th, El DoradoCounty residents 
will have a chance to enjoy a dinner of soup and bread and help ease hunger 
abroad and here at home.Sponsored by El Dorado Peace and Justice 
Community, the 6th Annual Empty Bowls event will take place at the Placerville 
Shakespeare Club, at 2940 Bedford Avenue, from 4:30 to 8pm.


Oxfam International, a confederation of 13 organizations working together 
with over 3,000 partners in more that 100 countries to find lasting solutions to
poverty and injustice will be one beneficiary of this year’s event.Oxfam 
International is one of three worldwide agencies supported by Empty Bowls 
proceeds on a rotating basis.All three organizations – Oxfam, the Heifer 
Project and Mercy Corps – have proven track records and spend 95% of their 
contributions on actual aid.Locally, the event will benefit the Upper Room 
Dining Room on Broadway, which serves over 120 people daily.


Carla Turoff, El Dorado Peace and Justice Community board member and organizer
says: “Empty Bowls is a small gesture that keeps us all connected to an
understanding of how things really are for a large number of our fellow humans.
It is also a way of remaining connected to one another here, in our local
activist community. Hopefully, it helps to keep us dedicated, in the long term,
to finding a real solution to the problems of poverty, injustice, and hunger in
our world.It has three objectives: To raise funds to feed hungry people, to
raise awareness about the issues of hunger and inequality in our local and
global communities and to remind people that through artistic creativity we can
help to create positive social change.”

Each year, the Peace and Justice Community, a nonprofit 501-c3 
organization, strives to raise more funds than the previous year. This year the
goal is to make more than the $10,000 that was raised in 2006.

Those folks unable to attend the event can send a contribution to the El 
Dorado Peace and Justice Community, PO Box 543, Diamond Springs, CA95619.

   For more information on the event, please visit www.edpjc.org. 

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     Placerville Shakespeare Club

     2940 Bedford Avenue in Placerville
     4:30-8pm on Saturday, November 10th.
     Donations of $15-$50 keep the handmade bowl.
     Children under 10 Free. 
     (Those admitted free receive a meal,  but no keepsake bowl)

               No one is turned away for lack of funds.