Ingredients for a Community Soup Bowl

Earth.

Clay.

Transformed by fire into works of art.

We are like clay, formed by the loving hands of our community – family, churches, businesses, schools, agencies, health care.

Supported to withstand life’s trials by fire and become strong.

Such is the journey of many of the women and families helped by the Clatsop County Women’s Resource Center. It presupposes support from a caring, concerned community – to be celebrated along with the arts at the WRC’s Community Soup Bowl fundraiser from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, at The Loft in the “Red Building,” located at 20 Basin St. in Astoria, in front of the Cannery Pier Hotel.

WRC staff members see the Community Soup Bowl less as a fundraiser than a time of observance, an occasion for coming together to acknowledge community ties – our interconnectedness. It’s meant to embody and consecrate the cooperative spirit in the region. The mix of materials, people and activities that go into making the event happen is also not unlike ingredients combined to make a nourishing and nurturing soup.

Bowls

Pat Burness, the WRC’s director, explains that the bowl is a significant metaphor for community. So during the event, the circular bowl is filled with soup that nourishes. This in turn generates proceeds that help support the WRC’s work. Emptying and refilling, on a number of levels, occurs again and again over time, creating a cycle that encloses the community working together to make it all happen.

This year, there’ll be roughly 150 handmade bowls available for purchase at the event, available on a first-come, first-served basis. A raffle will select 10 lucky people who’ll get first pick of the bowls.

Lauren Cross throws a bowl on the potter’s wheel. Submitted photo.Volunteers

Volunteers are invaluable to the WRC’s work. In preparation for the Community Soup Bowl event, they gather wood for and stoke the Dragon Kiln. Others make soup. Still others make soup bowls. Howard Clark, who is semi-retired and grew up in Astoria, does all three. He says the WRC “does a great job” and credits the agency with giving “direct and effective” assistance to victims of the December storm. He looks on the Community Soup Bowl as a “fabulous opportunity” for people who don’t ordinarily get together to help one of the most helpful organizations in the area.

Potter Richard Rowland oversees the firing of hundreds of bowls each year as part of the Clatsop County Women’s Resource Center’s annual Soup Bowl fundraiser. Submitted photo.Potters

Potters at Clatsop Community College have been at their wheels for the last several months, fashioning one-of-a-kind, handcrafted bowls that will be for sale only at the Community Soup Bowl.

According to potters Richard Rowland, Lauren Cross and Matt Tennis, it’s hard work to make a good bowl. It should be functional – the bottom should be smooth so one can get a spoon across it; the shape of the lip should let you drink or pour from it; and it should be stackable. But other things should enter in, like how a bowl feels in your hand or the satisfaction that’s derived from running into someone who tells you they’ve been using a bowl you made for years. Rowland finds a “sense of empathy” in an empty bowl in which one may put value. For him, a good bowl doesn’t exude technical facility as much as a sense of place.

A young Soup Bowl diner probably appreciated the tasty contents of his bowl more than the vessel itself at last year’s event. Submitted photo.Chefs and their soups

The chefs at the Community Soup Bowl are all volunteers. Their backgrounds vary widely, as do their soup recipes. They include WRC staff, board members or their spouses and even some local professional chefs. Clatsop Community College, local businesses, the public sector and a nonprofit or two are represented in this culinary endeavor. Early reports suggest that there will be at least one crock pot each of Howard and Wendela Clark’s cioppino, Moroccan pork and garbanzo bean soup, chicken and dumplings and some vegetarian options.

A list of ingredients will be available for all soups served at the event, so folks with food allergies don’t have to worry.

Women’s Resource Center staff

The WRC staff – all women – participate in the Community Soup Bowl every year, making some of the soups and waiting tables. At a recent meeting, they talked eloquently about the event and the people it helps. Kathryn Burr and Sharon Beatteay are making soups using cherished family recipes that bring back fond memories from their childhoods. Shannon Symonds is making black bean and rice soup, which reminds her of 10 years ago when the WRC had only three staff and few volunteers. Everyone was busy back then, and there wasn’t always time for lunch. They’d all eat beans and rice from a crock pot – she came to love them.

The folks who attend

The people who attend the Community Soup Bowl add essential ingredients to community’s soup mixture, through the purchase of tickets, bowls and direct donations. The level of participation in the event has been increasing since its inception five years ago. Expectations are that this year’s will be the biggest soup bowl event ever. More than 200 people are expected. If you’re planning to attend, tickets are $30 and on sale at Lucy’s Books, the Déjà Vu Thrift Shop, the Cannon Beach and Seaside Chambers of Commerce and the Women’s Resource Center. Tickets for soup only (no bowl) are $15 and must be purchased at the door. To use your VISA or Mastercard, call the WRC office at (503) 325-3426.

Sponsors

Sponsors for the Community Soup Bowl include The Loft at the Red Building, Columbia Memorial Hospital, TLC Credit Union, Rita and Greg Hamann, Blue Scorcher Bakery Café, Clatsop Community College and local potters.