<\/a>Some of the hundreds of wooden and ceramic bowls made by local residents for the annual Empty Bowls fundraiser are displayed on a table at Centennial Hall on Sunday. (Mark Sabbatini \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
The fundraiser, returning to the convention hall for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, sold 210 tickets and raised an estimated $47,500, including sponsorships and other contributions including a silent auction, according to Glory Hall Executive Director Mariya Lovishchuk. It is the largest fundraising event of the year for the homeless shelter and soup kitchen, which has an estimated operating budget of slightly less than $1 million a year.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Gotschall said he made about ten bowls for this year’s fundraiser, which he and other members of the Tongass Turners woodworking group have created bowls for over the years. The wooden bowls were greatly outnumbered this year by ceramic dishes among the hundreds on display on tables outside the main ballroom where soup was being served — and perhaps because they were fewer in number, most were claimed early during the three-hour event.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
But lest anyone worry about bowls with beetle remnants — or fingerprints or other remnants of being publicly picked over — the soup was served in disposal bowls while the keepsakes went home clean.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Homelessness in Juneau, as with many areas of the U.S., is a growing problem, which is particularly acute at present due to the lack of an officially designated local campground for the first time in many years.<\/a> Municipal leaders are struggling to find an acceptable site due to rampant problems at Mill Campground last year and complaints by businesses owners near the cold weather emergency shelter that closed last week, where an adjacent lot had been proposed as a potential campsite.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Most people interviewed who paid $60 to attend the fundraiser — getting a take-home bowl, soups of their choice donated by several restaurants and homemade baked goods — said they were in some way directly affected by people in Juneau experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Bonnie Berg examines the dessert table at the Empty Bowls fundraiser at Centennial Hall on Sunday. (Mark Sabbatini \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t “It’s honestly surprised me when I first moved here that people would even be sleeping rough on the streets just because winter is rough,” said Garrett Dunbar, who moved from Virginia to Juneau nearly six years ago. “It’s incredible that they live through it.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t While Dunbar picked out a ceramic bowl (“I like the blue color and I like how it’s kind of like a drip pattern on the outside”), his companion at the event, Bailey Woolfstead, picked out one of the wood dishes (“the graining on the wood is so beautiful and it’s so beautifully made”).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “I’m a local prosecutor and I work in a system where we unfortunately see a lot of people who are down on their luck, and I really support the Glory Hall and the work that they do,” she said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The variety of bowls were suited to all appetites as well as artistic tastes, including large and deep dishes that could easily feed a couple, nearly flat wood creations barely able to hold a spoonful of broth, and crafty creations with handles to handle the heat or holes to place utensils such as chopsticks.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>