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September 4, 2009
For Immediate Release
For more information: Brian Jensen, (801) 863-8223; Nancy Mickiewicz, (801) 373-1825;
University Marketing & Communications: Erin Spurgeon, (801) 863-6807
Written by: Alex Strickland, (801) 863-7011
When a group of UVU art students and professors sit down to get ready for a meal later this month, they won't be whipping up some tasty new dishes. They'll be whipping up the dishes.
UVU art and visual communications professors Brian Jensen and Mark Talbert and a group of their intermediate and advanced ceramics students will craft hundreds of bowls for Provo's Food & Care Coalition. The crew will hold in a "Bowl-A-Thon" to make hundreds of bowls for the coalition's "Bowls for Humanity" fundraiser next spring.
"It’s to start prepping for next year," said Food & Care Coalition spokeswoman Nancy Mickiewicz. "It’s such a great community event because it’s a very diverse crowd with artists, people who love pottery and loyal volunteers. It’s just a huge variety of people.”
Each spring since 2006 the coalition has invited community members to partake in a soup dinner to benefit the organization's mission and gives diners the opportunity to purchase the bowl they eat from.
"It's about the community and getting our name out there," Mickiewicz said. "It's about letting people know that people are hungry and people are homeless."
Assistant professor Brian Jensen said one of Bowls for Humanity’s coordinators, Tammy Rodeback, contacted UVU to see if the faculty and students could lend a hand.
“Last year was the first year I could attend,” Jensen said. “I got really excited about the potential and we’re trying to do a better job supporting it.”
So on Sept. 18, Jensen, Talbert and some of their students will sit down for their ‘Bowl-A-Thon” and “spend a chunk of the day churning out as much as we can,” according to Jensen.
In fact, Jensen said he hopes to hold a similar event in the spring, just before the fundraiser, to make a few hundred more.
“We’re committed to 400 or 500 bowls from UVU, which will hopefully turn into a lot of income for them,” he said.
Top students and the professors will also spend a bit of time on their own to create some more personal pottery to donate to the event. Which is good, since according to Mickiewicz the bowls are becoming something of a hot commodity.
“I had no idea these would turn into such a collector’s item,” she said. “Even my husband is collecting them.”
In the end, though, all those pieces of pottery support a cause that Mickiewicz said is worthy of the community’s assistance.
“We help people who have nowhere else to go,” she said. “Our main goal is to help those who need it the most.”
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