Celebrity bowls will help feed city's hungry

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Notables, including Usher, Renée Zellweger and Elton John (below), contributed for the auction to help Winnipeg Harvest. (RUTH.BONNEVILLE@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

Imagine having Elton John, Milt Stegall, Renée Zellweger, Dan Aykroyd, Tom Jones or Gordie Howe lend you a hand while you eat your cereal, soup or pudding.

Well, maybe not with the actual mechanics of bringing your spoon to your mouth, but they could provide the dishware, which is an essential element to most meals. Along with 58 other celebrities, humanitarians and business leaders, they've each contributed a personally decorated and autographed bowl to Winnipeg Harvest's signature fundraising effort this year.

The Empty Bowl Celebrity Auction, proceeds from which will go to Harvest's efforts to reduce hunger in the province, will be held next Tuesday at the Delta Winnipeg hotel. The evening will begin with a simple meal of fine soups and breads and culminate with live and silent auctions of 63 bowls.

Barry McArton, a Harvest volunteer and co-chair of the event, said the buy-in from virtually all of the participating artists was strong because many of them, such as Dolly Parton, came from poverty themselves.

"The people in the arts world who have made it didn't always have money. Most of them were struggling at some point and may have even relied on food banks at some time. Most of them realize they've got to give back," he said.

Other high-profile people to have decorated a bowl include boxing legend Muhammad Ali, the cast of Coronation Street, former teen heartthrob David Cassidy and talk show host Jay Leno.

Louis Trepel, a local marketing consultant and the event's other co-chair, said there's an obvious symbolism behind the evening's theme.

"These are empty bowls (that we're auctioning off) and we need to fill these bowls to feed hungry Manitobans. We look at all these bowls and think of all the kids programs going on. We need to fill them with cereal and soup," he said.

McArton said the sold-out fundraiser -- the last of the 500 tickets was sold earlier this week -- wouldn't be nearly as impressive if it weren't for the help of countless volunteers. One of them, Kevin Donnelly, senior vice-president at True North Sports & Entertainment Ltd., asked various musical acts he booked to play at MTS Centre, such as Celine Dion, Michael Buble and Leonard Cohen, to decorate a bowl.

Not every artist agreed to get out the supplied paint brush and marker, however. But when hard-rock legends Metallica declined, they proposed donating 50 cents for every ticket sold to their October show to Harvest instead. When nearly 15,000 fans turned up, the band promptly wrote a cheque for $7,474.

Trepel said Harvest has ramped up its fundraising efforts this year because the economic downturn has hit many Manitoba families where they eat.

"There's more pressure on the food bank for people needing help," he said, noting Harvest can leverage $20 worth of food for every $1 donation.

The fundraiser is already $175,000 in the black, thanks to corporate sponsorship and numerous donations, including one from Winnipeg-based Brush Fire Ceramic Studio, which glazed all the bowls to prepare them for auction.

McArton said while the bowls can be used for everyday eating, he expects most auction winners will keep their prizes out of the cupboard and on the mantle instead.

"Some of them are very precious. Most end up as display bowls but they're totally usable."

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca

What's cooking

at Winnipeg Harvest:

It distributes food through a network of community food banks, soup kitchens, emergency shelters and children's lunch and after-school programs.

In September 2008, Harvest provided food to more than 27,000 people in the province. A year later, that number had jumped by more than 21 per cent to 39,000.

Over the same period, the number of students ages 6 to 18 using the food bank increased by 24 per cent from 12,000 to 15,000.

During the summer, it provided more than 6,000 sandwiches a month to "Feeding the Future," a program designed to help keep kids on the straight and narrow.

Harvest distributes more than 9.7 million pounds of food to Manitobans every year but it also provides other services to the underprivileged, such as job training and doing tax returns.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 5, 2009 A8