BLOGGER OF THE WEEK!

Hi! I’m Marissa, “the blogger of the week” for this week. I’m going to give YOU the inside scoop and everything else about Empty Bowls. (That's me in the middle of the picture holding my pink empty bowl with my classmates on either side of me!)

Well, on June 4, 2009, ONLY the grade 5’s (5E, 5L, and 5H) put on the event, Empty Bowls. This event is a fundraiser for Winnipeg Harvest. Winnipeg Harvest is a non-profit organization that is run by volunteers! People that cannot afford to buy the food to feed themselves and their families can go to a food bank like Winnipeg Harvest, and get food.

Anyways, the evening was filled with fun and entertainment. 5E and 5L played the instruments and sang two songs, Island Song and The Lion Sleeps Tonight. 5H wrote “So much depends upon…” poems and played the xylophones and sang Lean on Me. Also, there was a dance performance of “Jai-Ho”. Mrs. Lee Newton came to talk to us. Mrs. Newton is the person who started Winnipeg Harvest! Did you know that Mrs. Newton started Winnipeg Harvest in 1983? On Thursday morning, we made Tomato Herbed Soup with Mrs. Simone. The soup was quite easy to make…tomatoes, pepper, garlic, celery, onion, etc and not to mention delicious! Although, at the actual Empty Bowls, it was still hot and I burnt my tongue! Our class made posters in computer class with Fireworks Macromedia software, Mrs. Meen helped us! On the hallway across from the office, our class created a sort of mosaic art piece with a bowl on it. I think that our class thought that it would look kind of weird, but it looks really cool-actually! Ohhhhhhh-yummy… don’t forget about the Cookie Auction! There were 8 jumbo cookies that the teachers/staff in our school baked. You could buy 1 ticket for $1, and 3 tickets for $2. You put part of your ticket in the bag, and the other you kept. Later they drew the LUCKY winners! (Obviously not me…)

So, why exactly is it called “Empty Bowls”? Well, with the help of Mrs. VanNice and Mrs. Ans in art class, we created some really cool bowls-first out of clay then into the kiln. We glazed them, then into the kiln again! The kiln is a big oven that the temperature rises to be over 1000 degrees! The bowls turned out really nice, and so cool! That is where the Bowls from “Empty Bowls” comes from. But, the Empty part is to represent the empty stomachs of the people who can’t afford food here in Winnipeg. So, leave your bowl empty. Now, that you know what Empty Bowls is, means, and how it was created, what happened after this fundraiser?

You had to buy your child’s bowl. Just with all the buying of the bowls raised a total of $820.00! THEN, the cookie auction raised $191.00. Now, drumroll please… in total, the grade fives here at Linden Meadows raised a total of $1011 for Winnipeg Harvest! Did you know that every dollar Winnipeg Harvest receives, they can buy 20 dollars worth of food! Hooray to us, for raising soooo much money! This is just one of the acts of kindness we can do to make this world a better place.