When River City Food Bank started its Empty Bowls fundraiser nine years ago, Cheryl Chamber, the event’s bowl coordinator, had to scramble a bit to make sure there would be more than enough bowls for people to take home as a reminder of hunger in our community.

No more. More than 30 schools, groups and individuals are boxing up hundreds of bowls for attendees to select at the event on March 5 and 6. (Make sure you get your tickets soon here.)

But no one source has created more bowls for the event than art teacher Robert Boriskin’s students at Christian Brothers High School. Over the past six years, C.B. students have created and donated more than 1,000 bowls. And that’s not counting this year’s expected donation of 300 bowls.

Check out KCRA’s coverage of this morning’s bright-and-early bowl-a-thon, at which students continued to complete bowls, just in time for the big event March 5 and 6 at the Convention Center.

Students say they’re inspired by the chance to create something that will be sold to raise money for people who are hungry, especially children. From the looks of it, however, students follow many muses. Their creations include the serious and the whimsical, abstract and realistic designs, themes from popular culture and statements about personal identity.

What they all have in common is heart.

Besides bowls created by C.B. students, this year’s event will feature bowls made from a variety of materials by professionals and talented amateurs: ceramic, porcelain, glass, wood and metal. We’ll be posting photos of some of the fun bowls that will be available at the event on our Facebook page. Like us and see! (Lots more photos of this morning’s bowl-a-thon are on our Facebook page, too.)

We’re still recruiting for more sponsors to help achieve our fundraising goal for this year. Learn more about sponsorship options here. You can purchase sponsorships online or contact us: email@rivercityfoodbank.org.

The child poverty rate has increased for the fourth year in a row, and 44% of children now live in low income families. Help River City Food Bank ensure that kids have access to healthy foods so that they can grow, learn and thrive.

Nearly half the people in California live on the edge financially — just one set of bald tires, medical problem or job cutback away from collapse. When their savings aren’t enough to see them through a crisis, these families suddenly slip from “making it” to being poor. We all have our point of view as to cause and even blame, but the fact remains that children become innocent victims.

River City Food Bank believes “no one should be hungry” — especially children.

Sadly, things could soon grow worse for working poor families. If a federal bill now in conference passes, families who use “individual taxpayer identification numbers” issued by the Internal Revenue Service will be denied cash refunds under the child tax credit to those who file tax returns, a credit that has been a life-saver for families who are struggling.

River City Food Bank’s response

In 2011, River City Food Bank’s Food Aidprogram provided 3-day emergency food supplies for 13,632 children, nearly 30% of all meals we provided.

But look at how the numbers are rising: the number of meals we provided for children jumped from 885 in January 2011 to 1,230 last month - almost a 40% increase from the prior year.

And through our BackSnacks program, another 362 children enrolled in two schools each received 218 snacks throughout the school year. The BackSnacks program fills kids’  backpacks with nutritious snacks to help them maintain their energy after school and on weekends. Typical goodies include 100% juice boxes, energy bars, dried fruit, etc. Kids who aren’t hungry are better able to study, participate in activities and exercise.

We’re thrilled that the Sisters of St. Francis recently made a donation of $12,000 to fund the expansion of BackSnacks to a third school. As part of their long history of social justice, the Sisters founded a daycare center in Sacramento for cannery workers in 1920, which later provided daycare to Japanese-American women who supported the WWII war effort by working in manufacturing. The Sisters wanted to perpetuate their original mission of caring for women, and are doing so by helping RCFB distribute nutritious snacks to kids in need.

Three ways to help fight childhood hunger

1.  Volunteer! We’re looking for someone to help coordinate the expansion of BackSnacks into a third school. Interested? Contact us: email@rivercityfoodbank.org.

2.  Hold a mini-drive for family essentials: bigger sized diapers, baby wipes, baby formula (preferably milk-based) and toiletries. We’d also love children’s books! (Remember you can drop off donations of food or children’s items at any Goodwill Store or Goodwill Donation Xpress in the Sacramento region.)

3.  Make a tax-deductible donation to River City Food Bank to help provide families with nutritious groceries to help them make it through tough times.

Can you help make our new home welcoming for children?

On our wish list, we’re looking for a children’s activity table and two child-sized chairs to help entertain the tots who accompany moms and dads when they visit our new facilitate at 1800 28th Street. We need something with no loose pieces, appropriate for kids 5 and under.

It’s hard to believe, but an estimated 2,000 people will join forces in March to help raise money for the many hungry people in the Sacramento region. With need continuing to rise, especially among families with children and seniors, the $125,000 that River City Food Bank hopes to raise couldn’t come too soon.

Empty Bowls, River City Food Bank’s most important fundraiser, has grown into a real community-wide event over its nine year history. This year, more than 1,000 people are expected to attend either the supper event on Monday, March 5, or the luncheon event on Tuesday, March 6. Meanwhile, hundreds of students, professional artists and potters have been working for months to create bowls for guests to choose from upon their arrival at the event.

And that’s not counting the many volunteers who organize and set up, prominent chefs who create the soups, or the celebrities who don aprons to greet guests and dish out soups.

The $60 ticket for the Monday evening event, from 5:30-7:30 p.m., includes not only a choice of gourmet soups and an opportunity to select a one-of-a-kind bowl to take home, but wine, hors d’oeuvres and dessert. For the first time, Classique Catering is sponsoring the evening event and promises to present a delicious menu.

The luncheon, slated for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., will be divided into an 11 a.m. and 12:30 seating. The $30 luncheon ticket includes a bowl to take home as a reminder of the many empty bowls in our community, as well as a selection of soups, bread, and dessert. Both events include a Potters’ Market featuring booths of arts and crafts items provided by local artists.

“It’s a simple meal with a simple message: people are hungry,” says Eileen Thomas, executive director.

Under the leadership of co-chairs Beth Foondos and Betsy Myers, RCFB is kicking the event up a notch with a new venue: the Sacramento Convention Center.

“We’re so grateful for the generosity of the Sacramento Masonic Temple for letting us use their beautiful ballroom on J Street for so many years,” explains Eileen, “but the event just outgrew it.”

Attendees will continue to enjoy the informal atmosphere of the simple soup supper or luncheon, but without bottlenecks caused by the limited space. Although there will still be two luncheon seatings, there will be plenty of tables so that people can linger with friends.

Where can I buy tickets?

Tickets may be purchased online, or at one of two Sacramento retailers: The Cathedral Bookshop, 2620 Capitol Avenue, or Avid Reader at the Tower, 1600 Broadway.

What restaurants are creating soups?

The Broiler, Café Bernardo, Classique Catering, The Grange, Greek Village Inn, Lucca Restaurant and Bar, Michelangelo’s, R15, Scott’s Seafood Grill and Bar, and Vizcaya

Where do the bowls come from?

Area students from the following area schools produce an amazingly creative array of bowls: American River College, Christian Brothers High School, Consumnes Oaks High School, CSUS Ceramics Center, Elk Grove High School, Highlands High School, Rio Americano High School, Twelve Bridges Middle School, Twin Lakes Elementary School, Sacramento City College, Sheldon High School, Sierra College, and Vista del Lago High School.

Some of the most polished bowl creations come from professional potters as well as amateurs who participate in ceramic, wood and glass workshops. Wooden and glass bowls are very popular, and Norcal Woodturners have pledged 100 of their hand-turned creations!

Bowls are expected from: Firebox Ceramics, Allied Ceramics Art Institute, P.K. Bryan Ceramics Studio and Student Workshop, Classen Studio, gd Designs, Hands in Mud Workshop, JM Ceramics, Mudpie Pottery, Natural Fire, Nor-Cal Woodturners, Practical Pottery, Stellar Studios, Kanika African Sculptures, Terraluna Art, Ray Gonzales Artworks, John C. Reiger Pottery, and R.R. Ceramics.

Thanks to our sponsors

Sponsorships are vital to the financial success of Empty Bowls. Please take a moment to look at the list of sponsors on our website’s Empty Bowls page.

Empty Bowls, to be held March 5 and 6, is River City Food Bank’s biggest fundraiser, and this year it’s going to be bigger and better than ever.  The event has experienced so much growth in the past few years that this year’s event will be held at the Sacramento Convention Center. Our goal is to raise $125,000 to provide emergency 3-day food supplies to the increasing numbers of families and seniors who need help getting by.

When

Supper: Monday, March 5, 5:30-7:30 p.m., $60 per person
Luncheon: Tuesday, March 6, 11:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. seatings, $30 per person

Where

Sacramento Convention Center
1400 J Street  Sacramento, CA 95814

Tickets

Tickets are now on sale online as well as two retail locations: The Cathedral Bookshop at 2620 Capitol Avenue, and the Avid Reader at the Tower, 1600 Broadway.

Your ticket includes

• A beautiful handmade bowl of your own choosing, a reminder of the many empty bowls in our community
• Delicious soup supper or luncheon featuring soups created by Sacramento’s best chefs as well as dessert
• At the soup supper, wine and hors d’oeuvres in addition to gourmet soups
• A contribution to a great cause and the knowledge that you made a difference
• New this year
• Our event’s new location at the Sacramento Convention Centers provides more room for you to sit with friends, peruse the handmade bowls, choose your gourmet soup, and shop the Potters’ Market.
• We’re excited that Classique Catering is sponsoring the evening supper and will provide delicious appetizers, soups and deserts.
• How you can help
• Besides buying a ticket and attending, please share information about the event with friends and colleagues. Most people hear about Empty Bowls from someone they know. Please spread the word via email or share with your social networks!

To learn more about this event, or how to become a valued sponsor, check out our event page!

Marion Welch offers healthy options to Ken

The word is out: River City Food Bank is back in business, and it’s better than ever.

After two weeks out of operation as we moved, we re-opened Monday to a relieved crowd. Short on money for basics like healthy food, people in need found our new home at 1800 28th Street. By the end of the week we provided emergency 3-day groceries to approximately 1,300 clients.

The open-plan facility also allowed us to do something we’ve been wanting to do for years: offer people a choice of healthy foods. We believe it will help people eat better if they can choose things that fit their family’s tastes and habits. But it also reflects our philosophy of serving people with dignity. We want to respect their preferences and give them more control over what for many is a devastating experience: not just a loss of income, but the loss of a way of life.

The building not only looks shiny and new, it smells fresh. “The smell of fresh paint instills a sense of pride in our volunteers, staff and clients,” Eileen says. “It feels new and hopeful.”

Who needs new-car smell when you can have this?

Besides the many volunteers who helped improve the space and pack and unpack boxes of supplies and food, Eileen says she is grateful for John Rohveld’s facilitation with Shannon Trucking, which moved RCFB’s enormous commercial freezers and refrigerators. Goodwill also provided the truck that loaded up our food and moved it to the new location a half mile away.

More photos of our first week!

Posted by: philanthrophile, also known as Betsy Stone

It doesn’t look like much, but what Eileen Thomas is holding in her hands is the health department’s permission for River City Food Bank to start operating at the new location at 28th and R Streets. We painted the bathroom with the wrong kind of paint, and the hot water temperature is 5 degrees too cool, but we can address those issues and open for business Monday morning.

Eileen rescheduled the move four times to address delays and other hiccups, like missing fire extinguishers that the Fire Department required in its final sign off. Check out the photos below of the move-in:

– Posted by: Philanthrophile, also known as Betsy Stone

Maggie Erwin, registered dietitian, CARES, shows off the finished product

The Hunger Coalition introduced CARES and River City Food Bank to each other, but fun – and love of food – keeps them together.

Picture 25 people in a room enthusiastically taking turns to hollow out a small pumpkin, chop onions and shallots, shred cabbage, brown some beef and then mix the beef with tomato sauce, water and rice.  Mmmm… and then imagine the best part: sampling the dinner-in-a-pumpkin that had been prepared hours before.

Every month, Eileen Thomas presents the one-hour, free “Fun with Cooking” cooking class at CARES (a health clinic and community STD testing site) to people who are looking for tasty and affordable ways to improve the quality of their meals.  Showing people on tight budgets how to make crowd pleasing meals with food pantry staples is a highlight of Eileen’s month.  Participants come from both CARES and the food bank.

Margie Erwin, registered dietitian of CARES, explained that the cooking class is a great match between the two organizations’ missions:  ”River City Food Bank clients benefit from CARES services and access to nutrition  information from CARES’ registered dietitian and dietetic interns, and RCFB clients benefit from knowing about CARES.”

Lisa Steele, guest teacher, and Jaclyn Goldsmith, UCD Dietetics program intern

Facing the impending move to the new building and extra work of the holidays, Eileen accepted an offer from a guest teacher, Lisa Steele, who trained as a registered dietitian and shares Eileen’s love of cooking.

Participants all received the makings for the recipe, which serves 4 to 6 — including the sugar pumpkins.  Their commitment?  To make the recipe at home.

This wasn’t your quiet, awestruck cooking class.  The participants actively cheered one another on, applauded the outcome and exchanged ideas about ways to switch up the easy recipe.  For example, the recipe could go vegetarian by substituting black beans for the ground beef.  Or Asian with some ginger and soy sauce.  Or Mexican with corn and chili. It’s so versatile that any grain can be used in place of rice.

The goal of the partnership is to improve people’s consumption of nutritious foods despite economic limitations and, ultimately, to improve their health and quality of life.

The class participants highly recommend garnishing with a little fresh nutmeg just as the dish is served!

Here’s the recipe, chosen by Eileen, and adapted from food.com by Lisa:

Ingredients

• 1 small/medium pumpkin
• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 onion, chopped (and/or shallots)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
• 3 teaspoons Italian seasoning (or whatever spices in that amount that you have on hand that are in the mix: marjoram, basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 cups tomato juice (or tomato sauce and thin it a little)
• 3 cups shredded cabbage
• 1/2 lb fresh green beans, washed and trimmed (in this case the class used cabbage)
• 1 cup uncooked white rice
• Grated parmesan cheese to top

As Crystal Say (pictured above) swept stray top soil off the street next to River City Food Bank‘s new home last Friday, she explained that she had come to know the organization by participating in RCFB’s Harvest for Hunger in October through her involvement in XOSO sports league, which provided cleanup volunteers for the event.  She’s been receiving RCFB’s periodic e-newsletters and now, she says, “I love this organization.”  Lots more pictures here.

Randy Sater and Eileen Thomas

Thursday night, the Sacramento Metro Chamber celebrates the conclusion of its first Project Inspire effort, which has helped to convert a 3,275 square foot former agency for the hearing impaired into a food bank that is ready to serve the growing population of Sacramentans in need of emergency food.  Randy Sater, who was the Sacramento Metro Chamber Chair when the program kicked off last year, puts the value of the project at over $250,000, including a $10,000 cash award and LOTS of in-kind donations.

River City Food Bank asked the Chamber for $75,000 in in-kind help to improve the building that was purchased after its operational home was lost to arson on Oct. 21, 2010.  Since it was picked from 48 applications last February, a group of committed Metro Chamber volunteers has been busy behind the scenes helping River City Food Bank to secure the permit to operate as a food bank, plan the new space, and recruit companies and individuals to donate materials and labor toward the effort.

Kyle Glankler

As with any building project, the RCFB project took longer and cost more than anticipated.  Kyle Glankler of Roebbelen Contracting Inc. steadily pushed the project forward as a key volunteer leader of the effort, cajoling community partners and Metro Chamber members to support the effort. Wayne Kirkling of Teichert also had a big hand in securing partners that delivered top soil and trimmed trees last Friday.  Paula Desideri of Lionakis, who spearheaded space planning, got so involved that she’s since joined the RCFB Board.

ADP volunteers

Last Friday, more than 50 people added their sweat equity to the effort by sweeping, digging, trimming, prepping, hauling, pouring and compacting soil, hauling and washing.  Lots of pictures are on our flickr site, here.  The volunteer effort was followed this week by interior and exterior painting.

Take a minute to look over the list of the great and giving people and companies who stepped up to do a little – and in many cases, a lot!  We’ll continue to add to this list as we identify more of the many companies and people who have been helping to rebuild this important part of Sacramento’s food safety net.

• Project Inspire/RCFB Project Committee: Roebbelen Contracting Inc., 3fold Communications, Carpenter’s Union, Downey Brand LLP, Lionakis, Northern California Construction Trades, Sutter Health, Taylor & Wiley, and Teichert
• In-kind donors (those *asterisked contributed $5,000 or more in goods and services)
  
• 3fold Communications
• Air Systems*
• AP Thomas
• Atlas Disposal
• Bonney Heating and Air*
• Capital Engineering Consultants
• Carpenter’s Union
• Chipotle
• Downey Brand LLP*
• Fallen Leaf Tree Service
• Green Acres Nursery
• Harry A. Yee and Associates*
• Hastie’s Capitol Sand and Gravel
• JD Pasquetti General Engineering
• KHS&S Drywall
• Lionakis*
• Nohoch Production
• Pacific Coast Building Products
• Roebbelen Contracting Inc.*
• Rosendin Electric*
  
• StoneBridge Properties
• Summit Air
• Sutter Health*
• Taylor-Wiley*
• Teichert-Capitol Builders Hardware
• Turman Commercial Painters*
• Winzler & Kelly
• Volunteers on 11-11-11:  Nor Cal Construction & Training Program students, The Berejikian-Lack family, Deirdre Bigus, Mike Borchard, Giselle Carrillo, Kristin Casey, Joe Cava, Allie Cole, Neil and Susan Cunningham, Marie Fiore, Kevin Garvin, Andrew Geniesse, Kyle Glankler, Luanne Hansen, Peggy Hoyt, Nicole James, Antonio Jimenez, Kristian Jimenez, Hanna Kauffman, Scott Kauffman, LaSheathe Lampkin, Steven Livingston, Karl Lohse, Mona Lucero, Gregory Moore, Mike Norris, Sean O’Brien, Ron Parsons, Liz Purcell, Shareen Rendon, Judy Robinson, Delilah Rojo, Randy Sater, Crystal Say, James Schubert, Katherine Sherman, Michael Smith, Shirley Smith, Larry Stanfill, Keri Thomas, Scott Thomas, Heidi Thomas, John Thomas, Sheree Thornton, Elise Walden, Kerri Warner and Laura Wilder
  

Project Inspire is a program of activities focused on promoting community through inspiring civic-minded leadership, volunteerism, and philanthropic giving in the Sacramento region.  Anyone can join in this collective effort to do good for a donation of $250 or more!  The Metro Chamber is offering organized group volunteer activities, opportunities to contribute to a philanthropic giving circle, and recognition of giving efforts of businesses addressing the greatest social needs of the region. The program’s goal is to encourage participation by businesses and individuals, and to make it easier to give time, knowledge, talents and donations.

Want to get involved in 2012?  Secure donations may be made through the Sacramento Region Community Foundation’s website or by sending a check to the Sacramento Region Community Foundation earmarked for the Inspire Giving Fund.  Any business or community member who becomes a member of Project Inspire gets a voice in deciding which charity or charities will receive funds in the next funding cycle.

The need for River City Food Bank’s services has skyrocketed this year, especially for seniors and children.  By the end of 2011, an estimated 47,000 people will have turned to the food bank for emergency food assistance. Thirty percent of the meals provided now go to feed children, and the number of seniors served has climbed 55% since January of this year.

River City Food Bank, an independent 501 (c)(3), is completely funded by individuals and corporate donations and grants. Senior Gleaners and Sacramento FoodLink help supply RCFB with food, along with businesses that provide day-old items, frozen food and fresh fruits and vegetables. Individuals and groups donate non-perishable food, fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as formula and diapers for families with infants and young children. The organization is governed by a vibrant and skilled 16-member Board of Directors.

Posted by: Philanthrophile, also known as Betsy Stone