When I signed up to attend the Empty Bowls fundraiser for Kennett Area Community Service, I expected that it would be a tiny event with a few people ladling out soup to people like me popping in to Kennett on their lunch breaks.
My first clue that I was way off the mark should have been that the dinner seating was sold out more than a week in advance and only luncheon tickets were available.
I showed up to the Red Clay Room at 12:30 p.m. to find a packed parking lot and just about every seat taken inside the hall. It turns out that this is a major event, in its fifth year!
Lucy D'Angelo, one of the organizers (her husband, Pete, serves on the KACS Board of Directors), was nice enough to take me under her wing and explain the protocol in terms of getting in line for lunch (soup, salad, and a roll), checking out the dozens of baskets on the silent auction tables and selecting a pottery bowl to take home.
Lucy told me that because there were two seatings, the businesses that donated items and services for the silent auction had to give TWO gifts (the ones to be sold during the dinner seating were stored under the tables at lunch). I was impressed at such generosity, and the amount of effort that it took the volunteers to pull all this together.
During the formal program Unionville Presbyterian Church pastor the Rev. Annalie Korengel Lorgus welcomed everyone, and KACS executive director Melanie Weiler showed a moving video about the services KACS provides (a food cupboard, housing assistance, case management and emergency financial help). She said the goal of the agency is to respect their clients' strengths and dignity and guide them as needed rather than to tell them what to do. She described the clients are fighters, survivors and problem solvers who have learned to be creative in overcoming their difficulties.
The attendees and sponsors represent a who's who of the Kennett area. I sat with KACS treasurer Jeff Yetter and his wife, Carol (fresh off her second-place ribbon in the United Way's Chocolate Lovers' Fest) and saw Kennett Square Mayor (and new father!) Matt Fetick, new library board president Tom Swett, Kennett Y director Doug Nakashima (and a whole contingent of Y staffers), optometrist Carol Anne Ganley, architect Dennis Melton, and retired public health nurse and active community volunteer Joan Holliday.
In keeping with the overarching "Empty Bowls" theme, two dozen community groups made and donated pottery bowls, everyone from preschoolers to Girl Scouts to retirees at Crosslands. I picked a gorgeous bowl, a subdued blue with rust-colored highlights, that will be perfect for my breakfast cereal.
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