THUNDER BAY — Confederation College came through in a pinch for the Empty Bowls fundraiser, when an unexpected closure forced the annual event to relocate at the last minute.
On Monday, it was announced that Empty Bowls and Confederation College will continue to collaborate in 2025.
Robin Cooper, chair of Empty Bowls, said ideas are flowing and the conversations are already happening.
“We were really excited today to announce formally that Empty Bowls will be back here at Confederation College in October of 2025.
“As many people know, we had to make a quick switch over here to the college to host the event in October due to, you know, the temporary closure of the Moose Hall and the college stepped up and said, ‘yes, you can hold the event here.’
“We're going to be back in Ryan Hall in October of 2025,” she said.
Cooper said there are conversations happening about getting students and staff of Confederation College involved with Empty Bowls.
“We're also looking forward to working with SUCCI and the other programs here at the college that are supporting food security initiatives on campus. We're hoping that we can support them in some of the work that they're doing here on campus to support students in food security," she said.
There are so many ideas, Cooper said, but she doesn’t want to give any of them away quite yet.
“Everybody's looking forward to working with Confederation College and the new location gives us some new opportunities. We're going to explore those,” she said.
Cooper said before this year, they hadn't really realized the impact the event had on the entire community. Cooper said they also heard from churches, and restaurants such as the Chanterelle, reaching out to see if Empty Bowls needed a place to hold the event after the Moose Lodge unexpectedly shut its doors.
“Reflecting back on it now, I’m just really grateful and all of us were really grateful. It also showed us the impact that empty bowls has had. We kind of live in this little Empty Bowls bubble, with the people who attend our event and our team," she said.
Michelle Salo, president of Confederation College, said there was no hesitation in hosting Empty Bowls at the college.
“It represents what we're all about here in terms of giving back to community and especially when it comes to food insecurity. We know what an impact that has on our community members, and also our students.
“We want to be able to support Empty Bowls every year," said Salo. “We have a volunteer program here that we're working on between students and staff members so that they can help to volunteer at events like that as well.”
“We got such great feedback from the ticket holders saying they loved the (college) location," said Cooper. "The soup was amazing, the bowls were amazing. We're going to, in the new year, be able to announce the total that was raised. I think everybody will be very happy."
