News Release

Oregon Potters to create Empty Bowls

PORTLAND, Ore.—Blues fans will find more than music at the 18th annual Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, July 1 to 4. They’ll also find thousands of beautiful, handcrafted bowls.

Ceramic artists will donate thousands of handcrafted bowls for Empty Bowls. The Oregon Potters Association coordinates Empty Bowls, a fund-raiser to benefit Oregon Food Bank and its work to eliminate hunger and its root causes ... because no one should be hungry.

OPA is a group of potters working in Oregon and southwest Washington. The association collects pottery donations from its members throughout the year and sells them—most for just $10—at the blues festival.

During the 2004 blues festival, Empty Bowls raised more than $19,000 for Oregon Food Bank.

The empty bowl symbolizes hunger and poverty faced by people throughout the world, including the estimated 850,000 people (unduplicated) in Oregon and Clark County, Wash., who ate meals from an emergency food boxes last year.

A group of Michigan potters created Empty Bowls in 1991. The program is now a national fund-raising project in nearly all 50 states.

Oregon Food Bank thanks festival sponsors for making the 2005 Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival possible. The 2005 Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival is presented by First Tech Credit Union with major sponsorship by CO-OP Network, HSBC, Miller Genuine Draft, KINK fm102 and The Oregonian A&E.

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See www.oregonpotters.org/Home.htm

Contacts:

Jean Kempe-Ware, public relations manager
Oregon Food Bank
503-419-4170 (office)
503-572-7588 (cell)
jkempe-ware@oregonfoodbank.org

Peter Dammann, talent coordinator
503-283-3225