Filling the Empty Bowls

When Gabe Anaya became a volunteer for El Caldito 27 years ago, the Las Cruces soup kitchen was serving meals four days a week to about 80 people a day, it had two part-time employees and a fundraiser netted about $1,800, he said.

Today, Anaya is president of the El Caldito Board of Directors, and the soup kitchen is serving meals seven days a week to 400-600 people a day, it has two part-time and five full-time employees and more than 150 volunteers, and the goal for this year’s Empty Bowls fundraiser – which benefits El Caldito – is $45,000.

The 33rd annual Empty Bowls is 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 225 W. Griggs Ave. Advance tickets are available at Be So Creative, 1601 E. Lohman Ave.; New Digs, 1021 E. Amador Ave.; The Potteries in Mesilla, 2260 Calle de Santiago (11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday); Agave Artists Gallery, 2250 Calle de Albino in Mesilla (11 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday); Color Your World, 540 N. Telshor Blvd.; Save Mart, 495 N. Valley Drive; and Twisted Sugar, 4165 White Sage Arc.

“We have 1,500 bowls; we want them all gone,” said Marna Gasperino of the nonprofit Potter’s Guild of Las Cruces, which has made thousands of bowls for Empty Bowls since the first fundraiser in 1992. The Potter’s Guild is assisted in bowl making by students from New Mexico State University, Doña Ana Community College and Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bill and Janice Cook at the Potteries in Mesilla, Peter Paulos at Las Cruces Clay and Studio, along with church groups and other groups, businesses, organizations and individuals.

More than 60 local restaurants and bakeries are donating soup and bread for Empty Bowls, and this year’s silent auction will include a catered meal prepared by Doña Ana Community College culinary arts chef Tom Drake. Mesilla Valley Estate Sales will manage an Empty Bowls online auction Oct. 14-20. Visit mvestatesales.com. Local wineries and restaurants have donated wine and meal gift cards for Empty Bowls’ “Wine & Dine,” and wine cups and goblets will be for sale at the event.

Community support “means so much to us,” El Caldito Executive Director Steven Chavira said. “We feed people, but we nourish souls.”

An average meal at the soup kitchen costs $3.45, Chavira said, so a $25 donation to Empty Bowls will provide seven meals.

“That means a lot to these people,” he said, noting that clients receive a meal they can eat at the time it is served, along with a meal to go and snacks.

“We do scratch cooking for every meal,” Chavira said. “It’s all fresh.”
“We also want them (soup kitchen clients) to feel they belong,” said Abel Chavarria, who has been an El Caldito volunteer for five years. “They feel they are at home. They are at peace.”

Children served by El Caldito staff get a meal, a snack, a cookie and a smile, Chavarria said. “They get to be a child. They can feel this is a safe place.”

“If we were not here, the community would be in a world of hurt,” Chavira said. But he also said the soup kitchen only feeds “a very small portion of our community’s hungry” because others are unable to get to the site, located at 999 W. Amador Ave. as part of the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope.

As funding and help expand for El Caldito, “We want to make it hard for people to be hungry,” he said.

El Caldito opened its doors in 1984 at St. Andrews Church in Las Cruces, “offering a lunch of sandwiches, available one day a week,” according to the soup kitchen’s website. Twelve volunteers served 60-80 clients.

Empty Bowls was started in 1992, when Potters Guild member Cally Williams (co-chair of Empty Bowls 2025’s silent auction, along with Suzanne Kane), attended a national ceramics conference and came back with the idea.

Potters Guild founding member Jan Archey, who began volunteering for El Caldito in the 1980s, said the guild made 300-500 bowls for the 1993 Empty Bowls, raising about $3,500.

Art teacher John Hartom started the first Empty Bowls at Lahser High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1990. He asked his students to make ceramic bowls, invited the school faculty to a soup lunch featuring the bowls and requested donations to feed the hungry.

“I am just one person seeing the need of others and I can make a difference,” Archey said. “Whether it is making bowls or empowering others to make bowls or serving as the lead cook at El Caldito, I know what I am doing is making a difference in someone's life. We all have something we can give to make a person's day brighter. If we don't do it, who will?”

For Empty Bowls tickets, visit pottersguildlc.org. Also visit elcaldito-lc.org. Find Potters' Guild of Las Cruces, El Caldito Soup Kitchen and Empty Bowls of Las Cruces on Facebook.