Family Promise of Philadelphia is hosting its 25th Empty Bowl Dinner on Oct. 28 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at William Penn Charter School.

The nonprofit, which helps families overcome housing instability, will celebrate a quarter century of a tradition that brings together neighbors, restaurants, artists, and students. Each dinner guest gets to select a handcrafted ceramic bowl to take home as a reminder of poverty and housing insecurity, and a message of hope and encouragement to fill someone else’s bowl.

“We hope that when you take home an empty bowl, it’s a reminder that for some people, just having food on their plate, being able to pay rent, these things that we take for granted... they’re necessities, but they’re not certainties,” explained Bob Byrne, executive director of Family Promise. “By coming and attending a fundraiser event like this, you’re effectively filling someone’s bowl.”

The Empty Bowl Dinner has had many iterations, moving from Chestnut Hill College to United Lutheran Seminary and finally landing at Penn Charter for the last several years. Preparation begins in the summer, soliciting donations of soups, bread, and desserts from over a dozen local restaurants and sponsors.

The evening includes several vendors, raffle prizes, speakers, and entertainment. When guests arrive, the first thing they see is a table full of different kinds of bowls. In addition to professionally made bowls from local ceramic artists, students from Bala Cynwyd Middle School, Delaware Valley Friends School, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, and William Penn Charter School contribute bowls.

Owen Castle, an AmeriCorps volunteer at the nonprofit agency, said the event brings people of all backgrounds together and shows that the face of homelessness is not what people think.

“There’s the donors and the volunteers who buy tickets, but we also invite alumni families and people who receive services,” Castle said. “People who bought tickets are sitting across the table from someone who in the past year was in our shelter program or in our eviction prevention program. They get to share a meal together and have a greater understanding of each other.”

Penn Charter has been involved with the Empty Bowl Dinner for roughly a decade. The school’s Center for Public Purpose, an initiative that engages students in community-based work addressing social issues, plays a large role in putting on the event.

The Center for Public Purpose “centers a lot around poverty, and food access and housing access are two things that often rise for our students and are things they want to get involved in,” said Alyson Goodner, the director. “Family Promise’s mission around providing eviction services for families in Philadelphia is really aligned with a lot of the work of the center, and it’s aligned to the interests of our students. For us, opposed to just hosting it as an institution, we made it a student leadership opportunity.”

According to Goodner, students “have risen to the challenge” every step of the way. They call restaurants for food donations, coordinate with the school’s facilities team, decorate the dining area, greet people at the door, ladle the soup, and more.

"My favorite part of the Empty Bowl dinner is meeting these amazing people who have come out to support Family Promise," said Piper Stewart, a Penn Charter student who has helped with the event. "I also love meeting people who have used Family Promise and become very successful after struggling with homelessness or high rent.". 

“Our supporter base for this event was truly the heart of Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy, and we moved a little bit down the road, but we’ve done that because it engages the next generation,” Byrne said. “We really believe that planting seeds of social ministry with young people leads to a greater solution in the long term.”

Penn Charter is located minutes away from two of the top 10 eviction filing properties in Philadelphia, according to Princeton’s Eviction Lab. Zoe Schaedle, another AmeriCorps volunteer at Family Promise, said this statistic illuminates the fact that people are struggling with housing insecurity in our community.

“You’re thinking it’s someplace else, and it’s not; it’s right here in your community,” Schaedle said. “That’s the big impact I want people to understand when they’re coming to Empty Bowl: This is not something that’s happening far away. It’s happening right here in Northwest Philadelphia and you can make a difference, whether it’s through volunteering, whether it’s through buying a ticket, whether it’s through donations.”

For Soleil Gohouré, an AmeriCorps volunteer, the Empty Bowl Dinner and the ceramic bowls are a symbol of hope.

“When people support this event, they’re not just buying a ticket,” Gohouré said. “They are actively keeping a family housed, and they are filling their future with hope. I think the bowl is this tangible lifeline for families and it’s a way to represent the hope and stability that every family in the city deserves.”

The Empty Bowl Dinner will be held on Oct. 28 from 5-7:30 p.m. at William Penn Charter School (3000 W. School House Lane). Learn more at familypromisephl.org.

Maggie Dougherty can be reached at Margaret@chestnuthilllocal.com.