Already having an arsenal of ceramic bowls for themselves at home, Marge Lee and Mark Dierbeck were on the hunt for something different Sunday at the Empty Bowls fundraiser — food and water dishes for the Bend couple’s two cats.
They found what they were looking for, leaving the 12th annual Empty Bowls with a pair of bowls with a matching color scheme. Lee also won a $50 gift certificate in a raffle.
“We did good today,” said Lee, 58.
About 700 people attended the event at Central Oregon Community College’s campus center, where they first picked a handcrafted bowl from hundreds available and then dined on gourmet soup prepared by cooks from the Cascade Culinary Institute at COCC. During the meals, which had three rounds of seating, visitors were entertained by live music and the raffle.
Empty Bowls is the signature fundraising event for NeighborImpact, which offers food, housing and health care to low-income residents in Central Oregon, said Chris Quaka, the communications manager for the Redmond-based nonprofit. The event competes with another benefit, the I Like Pie run on Thanksgiving Day, to bring in the most money for NeighborImpact each year.
This year Quaka expected Empty Bowls to raise about $10,000. I Like
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