Celebrating Thanksgiving, the Austin Way

There’s no shortage of ways to love your fellow man in Austin. Especially around the holiday season, organizations rally to make giving back to the community fun and accessible.

This year Brian and I participated in the Austin Empty Bowl Project which is an effort by Austin area potters to fight hunger. (That actually started in Michigan.)

The concept is simple.

Peruse a room full of unique handcrafted and hand painted bowls donated by local Austin potters.

Pick out one or many and donate $25 to get the bowl and a soup ticket.

De-germify your bowl at the washing station.

Have it filled with your choice of about 15 different soups donated by area restaurants like Thai Fresh, Truluck’s, and The Soup Peddler.

Enjoy lunch and live music inside the food bank with friends and community. Donations go to the Kids Cafe program at Central Texas Food Bank and Meals for Kids, a program of Meals on Wheels Central Texas.

The best part is that this is an annual event. It’s always the Sunday before Thanksgiving, so mark your calendars for next year. 🙂

TIPS:

To avoid a long line – get there early, or get there late! Doors open at 11 so early means coming around 10:15am. If you show up at 11 when we did, you get to wait at the tail end of the line that wraps around the building. It took us around 45 minutes to get in but it was a sunny morning and we had a good time catching up with our friends.

Size doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what size bowl you pick, everyone gets one ladle of soup, so don’t pick a huge bowl just because you’re hungry!

If you see a bowl you like but haven’t seen them all – pick it up and carry it with you until you’re ready to make your decision. There are so many good ones, it’s hard to decide. Luckily, you can buy as many as you’d like and yeah, they all come with soup. 😉

Celebrating Thanksgiving this year will be different for us as we’re doing it up vegetarian style. Seems like bucking tradition is becoming our new tradition!