Fundraising, food, fellowship
The ‘Empty Bowl’ fundraiser is hosted annually by the Community Table.
Donated photo
The Community Table is in a small and unassuming brick building nestled between Sylva’s Municipal Drive and Poteet Park. It’s also a local lifeline. Every year, tens of thousands of community members visit the nonprofit — which since 1999 has envisioned a Jackson County in which no one “goes to bed hungry” — and are welcomed inside its doors.
To that tune, there’s a dual purpose to the Community Table’s annual “Empty Bowl” fundraiser. Just as collecting donations is important, so too is engagement with its broader network — guests, volunteers, employees and members of the board.
The event is “still a really vital part of what we do and how we connect with the community,” said Community Table Executive Director Paige Christie.
This year’s event takes place from 4-8 p.m. on Saturday, April 11, at the First United Methodist Church of Sylva.
Empty Bowl offers a menu of eight soups, ranging from vegan tomato basil to Brunswick stew, available dine-in or to-go. All are homemade, courtesy of Community Table staff.
“My kitchen crew is busting a move right now,” Christie told The Smoky Mountain News.
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After the soup is made, it must be transferred to tubs and carted off to the church. This year will mark the first time Empty Bowl is hosted at an external location, a consequence of the event’s popularity that requires extra logistical coordination. Hence, April 11 volunteer slots are available morning to for roles such as set-up and take-down.
The fundraiser itself features an array of beautiful pottery from which attendees may choose a piece to take home. The minimum standard donation is $30 per person, the “cost” of one piece of pottery — for example, a $60 donation would buy two — though anyone served by the Community Table is welcome free of charge.
“If [our clients] want to come and get an extra meal and participate, they can come, as well. So that’s kind of fun, because then everybody gets to mix together and talk to each other and hear their stories, and that’s super important,” Christie said.
As for the vibe of Empty Bowl, it’s “pretty informal,” she said.
“You’ll come in, you’ll make your donation, and then we’ll give you a bag for each [pottery piece],” she explained. “We’ve got mugs and vases and all kinds of stuff that that our potters have donated. And we’ve got everything from student potters — elementary school kids — all the way up to nationally award-winning professionals, so you can choose what’s going to make you happy.”
There’s also a raffle with donated items ranging from LED candles to a cast iron griddle. Attendees may enter with a contribution of $5 per ticket.
Addressing local hunger
Open Monday through Friday except Wednesday, Community Table serves a free 4-5:30 p.m. dinner daily and offers a food pantry from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., available to individuals and families on a biweekly basis.
Staff pride themselves on minimizing barriers to entry so often required by service providers, such as proof of qualification and bureaucratic paperwork. MANNA food bank donations are available on a take-as-many-as-needed basis. Everyone present for the evening meal will be served.
Community Table services are especially crucial given the nationwide rise in food insecurity and homelessness, a trend that has not spared Western North Carolina. According to the Jackson County 2024 Community Health Assessment Summary, that year, 35% of residents reported “that they had run out of food at least one time in the past year and/or were worried about running out of food in the past year,” an increase from previous surveys.
The Sylva nonprofit has experienced the downstream effects of growing hunger within the area. In 2020, during the height of the COVID pandemic, Community Table served 4,222 families, 14,362 individuals and 1,585 children. In 2021, federal assistance programs kicked in, and the nonprofit saw a significant decrease in annual numbers, though a gradual upward creep in subsequent years culminated in 2025’s record high. Despite a three-week closure for repairs, Community Table last year served 4,975 children — a 300% increase from 2020 — 5,737 families and 16,781 individuals.
That’s because inflation is on the rise and people are struggling, Christie said, including the fundraiser’s contributing artists, some of whom are just getting back on their feet after Hurricane Helene.
While Empty Bowl has always included pottery, the executive director’s past as a handcrafted gallery owner — disconnected as it might seem from her job now — has played in essential role in spearheading a new pottery collection system.
“As [Empty Bowl] began to grow, the amount that potters could donate locally was becoming a stress on the potters,” Christie said.
She called up former art gallery clients throughout the country, soliciting pieces and offering compensation. The ticket price was raised two years ago to account for this decision. Still, though, much of what Community Table receives is donated, and compensation isn’t always financial — the nonprofit provides various kinds of payment.
For example, some attend the event free of charge in exchange for their art. Others, such as a group out of the Swain Center at Southwestern Community College, will receive new clay, as per request.
Christie said 50% of proceeds from Empty Bowl are put toward operating costs, the other half to purchasing food.
The double-whammy is that as need is greater than ever, the money from the event doesn’t go as far as it used to. Beyond covering the cost of the fundraiser, Christie estimated donations will roughly cover only three weeks of Community Table expenses.
“There are a lot of hungry humans out there,” she explained.
