Disadvantaged Kids Get Creative at FEP Workshop

On a recent Sunday afternoon, 25 children gathered in the Moorestown Friends Meetinghouse to attend a pottery workshop hosted by the Friends Enrichment Program (FEP) for financially disadvantaged Moorestown children.  

Under the able guidance of ceramic artist and Moorestown Friends School art teacher David Gamber, the young people (a mix of FEP kids and young members of Moorestown Meeting) learned basic pottery techniques and made bowls.   

For workshop participants, it was up-to-your-elbows in clay and water, a messy hands-on activity that filled them with glee. As one boy remarked, “It’s a fun thing to do”—an opportunity for kids to play and work with clay to their heart’s content, while drawing on their imagination and creativity to produce one-of-a-kind bowls.   

The FEP pottery workshop was the first leg of an art-in-the-community service project. Bowls made at the workshop, as well as bowls produced by other people, including professional potters, will be displayed, sold, and filled with homemade soups at the FEP Empty Bowl Dinner, an event that will also feature homemade breads.  

FEP kids will help co-host the event, which will be held from 5-7 p.m. Sunday, March 11, in the Moorestown Friends Meetinghouse, 118 East Main St.

No admission fee will be charged. However, freewill donations will be gratefully accepted, and the proceeds will be divided between the Food Bank of South Jersey and the FEP scholarship fund. Half of the money raised will help provide meals for hungry people, including 57,820 children who go to bed hungry in Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem counties. The other half will put needed money into the FEP scholarship fund, which provides scholarships for qualifying children to attend summer camp and/or enroll in art classes, sports clinics, or take music lessons or participate in other life-enhancing activities.  

FEP kids and young friends of FEP may take pride in the knowledge that, through their participation in the project, they are helping their community with valuable contributions of time and talent.    

Last year’s Empty Bowl Dinner drew 141 people and raised a total of $1,917. FEP hopes this year’s dinner will be at least as successful, keeping in mind the increasing number of people in need of help. In the past year, the number of food-insecure people in the area served by the food bank has increased by 70 percent.

To reserve seats, call the Moorestown Friends Meeting office at 856-235-1561 or Monique Begg at 856-235-3963.   

- Provided by Monique Begg