Every year, all Fraser elementary school participate in Empty Bowls. Empty Bowls is for the 6th graders and they make their own bowls, paint them, and then the bowls are shown at the high school where people can buy an empty bowl and donate to charity for the hungry and homeless.

“Empty Bowls is a national organization that started in the 1980s’,  in Utica Michigan, to help promote awareness of hungry people and the homeless, and to help those communities that have homeless population,” said Mr. Drabant, an art teacher at the high school that has worked at the school for 22 years.

Fraser schools has participated in Empty Bowls for 11 years and have accumulated over $23,000 for MCREST.  

“Empty bowls is a fundraiser for MCREST and the proceeds go to people who are homeless. It’s an opportunity to make a piece of artwork that other people can purchase and all the funds go back to MCREST,” said Ms. McGinnis, another art teacher that has worked at the elementary for 4 years before coming to the high school.

MCREST is the Macomb County Rotating Emergency Shelter Team and they take in the homeless and take care of them.

“All profits raised goes to MCREST, and they are a group of 52 churches and organizations that house the homeless in Macomb County throughout the year. Each Church and Organization take in the homeless for one week and it rotates from place to place. They take in the homeless and give them showers, accessibility to toiletries, hygiene needs, and food. It impacts males, females, young adults, and teens. It helps everyone,” Drabant said.

Empty Bowls is an event that every 6th grader in the Fraser community participate in and they make the bowls.

“All of the 6th graders participate in this event, every 6th grader in Fraser public schools. We also have the number of art students helping at empty bowls that help clean up and collect donations. The 6th graders love making the bowls, and get to know that their product are going to help a charity,” Drabant said.

Empty Bowls is a way to bring awareness to the hungry and the homeless, and it reminds people about the less fortunate and problems that people face.

“When Empty Bowls was founded, the people that come in, they get a bowl to remember the hungry and less fortunate in our community. As a rememberance, the meal is a very simple meal of soup, bread, and water. To showcase the fact that some people might only get that for a meal any given day. So it’s a meek meal and a commemorative bowl that is made by our sixth graders to help the homeless,” Drabant said.

Empty Bowls is an event that is fun for 6th graders. It also brings together the whole community and helps the people of the community through art.

“I think it’s important as people to help the community in anyway that you can. For us all to work together and I think bringing in artwork is an important part of my job and bringing in artwork to help better the community is great. I am a huge advocate in like community artwork and helping bring together the community by doing artwork or using the artwork to help better the community, so it kind of a way to use artwork because people want to look at it and see it, and so it’s kind of a cool way for students to come together to help their community,” McGinnis said.

The Empty Bowls event takes place at the High School on January 25th, and Fraser hopes there will be many donations towards MCREST.