The Foodbank of Santa Barbara County will host the annual Santa Maria Empty Bowls event to raise awareness and funds to provide healthy groceries and fresh produce for those facing hunger in the Santa Maria Valley, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 3 at Santa Maria Fairpark at 937 S. Thornburg.
To ensure community safety, Empty Bowls will be held in drive-through format. Attendees will receive a pre-selected, handmade bowl and heat-and-serve gourmet soup to take with them.
Tickets are $25 each, for time slots on the hour and half hour, and may be purchased at FoodbankSBC.org/SMEB2021. Ten-ticket party packs are available for $250.
The Foodbank will deliver to any single address in Santa Maria a pack of (multiples of) 10 handmade bowls and 10 servings of heat-and-serve soup. Community members who choose the Party Pack option will be able to select what type of soup(s) they receive. Foodbank team members will reach out in the days prior to the event to take soup orders for Party Pack delivery.
Donors of gourmet soups will include members of the Allan Hancock College Culinary Arts Program (roast chicken and brown rice); Jaffe Café (red lentil); Jack’s in Orcutt (navy bean and ham); Moxie Café (tri-tip chili); Olive Garden, Santa Maria Country Club (chicken pot pie)‘ Santa Maria Inn (albondigas); Splash Café (clam chowder); Testa Catering (creamy ginger carrot); VTC Enterprises (southwest pumpkin); and Zoe’s Hawaiian BBQ (chicken tortilla).
Attendees will be able to choose upon arrival which soup they receive.
Hand-painted bowls are being provided by community members from Oasis Senior Center, Righetti, St. Joseph’s and Orcutt Academy high schools, Boys & Girls Clubs of Mid Central Coast, and by Foodbank and Empty Bowls champion Shirley Hinzo and friends – the Jimenez family, Samantha and Sara Plemmans, Jade and Melissa Reyes, Chris Shuman, artists from Fesler Junior High School and the Santa Maria Recreation and Parks Department, and Vandenberg Spouses Club.
Hundreds of handmade ceramic bowls will be provided by the Allan Hancock College ceramics program, Sue Southern and Ben Trogdon.
Empty Bowls supporters may participate in a free virtual photo booth. Selfie frames and an Empty Bowls photo album will be available courtesy of That One Photobooth and owner/founder Vanessa Grossman, who is a member of the planning committee for Santa Maria Empty Bowls.
Community members may text their soup-selfies to 805-321-1654, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 3, and receive their framed photo back by text. All event photos will be available Nov. 4 at That One Photobooth website.
While bowls will be pre-selected at random by Foodbank staff on the day of the Empty Bowls event, community members who would like to trade in the bowls they receive for ones that they choose themselves can do so 8 a.m.-4 p.m. the next day, Thursday, Nov. 4 at the Foodbank’s Santa Maria warehouse, 490 W. Foster Road. No appointment is needed.
Santa Maria Empty Bowls 2021 host committee members include Carol Torres, chair, Patsy Aguirre, Maggi Daane, Donna Denham, Vanessa Grossman, Ron Lovell and Elizabeth Sanchez, who also serves on the Foodbank Board of Trustees.
The Foodbank thanks the following sponsors of Santa Maria Empty Bowls: Pacific Premier Bank, Farm Credit West, Hardy Diagnostics, Atlas Copco, Dignity Health Marian Medical Foundation, Mechanics Banks, Pea King Produce, Allan Hancock College, Bank of America, Bethel Lutheran Church and Grower-Shipper Association of Central California.
For questions about Santa Maria Empty Bowls 2021, email Anna Boren at aboren@foodbanksbc.org.
The Foodbank of Santa Barbara County provides nourishment and education through a network of more than 300 partner agencies, nutrition education programs and food distribution sites operated by the Foodbank and its volunteers.
Over the last year, Foodbank’s response to the pandemic economic crisis has included distributing 27 million pounds of food, making more than 65,000 home deliveries of healthy groceries to seniors and adults with disabilities, and opening new services in high-poverty areas, such as the Healthy Farmworkers program. For more information, visit FoodbankSBC.org.