If you would’ve asked me what a lathe was a week ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But last Wednesday night, I found myself standing in front of one, learning the ins and outs of wood-turning.
Why? To help end hunger — one bowl at a time.
Local nonprofit Bowls for Good encourages folks to try their hand at turning bowls, which are then sold at fundraising dinners to benefit Feeding America Tampa Bay. Volunteers make their bowls from locally sourced lumber at BFG’s studio in the Morean Center for Clay in Midtown St. Petersburg, or they can make them with friends or colleagues in an office environment, where bowl-turning makes for a fantastic, if sawdusty, team-building exercise.
One bowl=140 meals. How cool is that?
Organizer Ben Farrell, a co-owner of Lenny’s Restaurant in Clearwater, covers all operating costs out of pocket, which allows for 100 percent of the public’s donations to be put toward ending hunger. After losing a close race for State Representative in Pinellas in 2012, Farrell was looking for a way to get involved in civic affairs. Inspired by Empty Bowls, a Feeding America Tampa Bay program involving sales of pottery made by schoolchildren and local artists (see “Help Is Here”), he decided to create a similar event based on his own interest in woodworking.
You don’t have to be an expert to take part. After a quick instruction session, I was given a piece of a cherry tree trunk and a wood-cutting tool and was put to work on the lathe. In the end, my bowl was more tray-like than bowl-like — but it'd be great for appetizers, I'm told.
My bowl will be among those up for grabs at Bowls for Good’s fundraiser at Lenny’s on Sat., Dec. 6, from 6:30-9 p.m. Tickets are $20, which includes one handmade bowl, soup and bread, and can be purchased in-studio, online or at the door. Other CL staffers are making bowls next Wednesday in Ybor Square outside our offices, and their handiwork will be for sale in a celebrity auction during the Dec. 6 event.
