If you missed the Empty Bowls fundraising event for the Share Outreach Food Pantry, you missed a chance for some really great food and, of course, the opportunity to help an organization that is there to help people in need.

The symbol of the Empty Bowls event is a large number of empty bowls, some made by students of Janice Shaughnessy’s Phoebe’s Barn pottery studio in Mont Vernon and some by students from Hollis Brookline and Wilton-Lyndeborough high schools. The former were for sale, the latter were there for the taking.

The event began at noon on March 31 and ran until 2, and by 12:30, the Share building in Milford was packed with people eating food from Black Forest, Pasta Loft, Union Street Girll, Papa Joe’s Humble Kitchen, LongHorn Steakhouse, Moulton’s Market, the Mont Vernon General Store, and wickedpissahchowder.

And while Empty Bowls was certainly about food, it was more about helping Share to be ready to ensure that folks in the area have a place to turn when they’re having a hard time. The organization provides food, clothing, and even emergency financial assistance to people in need in the Souhegan Valley and annually distributes about 135,000 meals to more than 500 families.

As you can imagine, that takes a massive amount of money and donations of goods. Events like Empty Bowls go a long way toward making sure that Share is ready.

You should be ready, too, for next year’s Empty Bowls. It’s not expensive, it’s fun, it’s a real community event, and it’s vital.

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