Annual lunch features soups from Salado restaurants, B&Bs and handmade bowls to add to your collection

Tickets are only available at the door  for the annual Salado Empty Bowl Project 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Nov. 22 at the Salado Intermediate School.

For just $20, you can purchase a handmade bowl by area potters, fill it with soup provided by area restaurants and help support the Salado Family Relief Fund. You can have all-you-can-eat soup for just $10 per person.

Local potter Titia Califano, of Mud Pies Pottery, works with potters from around the state to provide the handmade pottery bowls for the event.

Attendees get to select handmade bowls as keepsakes and fill up on soup provided by local restaurants and bed and breakfast inns. Participating restaurants are these: Stagecoach Inn,  Cathy’s Boardwalk,  McCain’s Bakery and Cafe, The Pizza Place,  Brookshire Brother’s,  Outlaws Cookshack,  Salado Vintage Cakery,  Inn On The Creek,  The Shed,  Johnny’s,  Stonecreek Settlement,  Baines House,  Inn at Salado,  Ambrosia Tea Room,  Salado Patio,  and The Range at the Barton House.

The Empty Bowl Project comes at a great time for the Salado Family Relief Fund, according to President Mary Catherine Ervin.

It helps replenish funds used for the annual back-to-school drive to provide school clothes and supplies to 150 Salado ISD students. The Salado Chamber of Commerce helped provide new shoes for students going back to school through the Midnight Madness 5K in August.

The Empty Bowl also raises funds for the annual Christmas project of SFRF to provide Christmas presents to Salado area families and children who are carefully screened to meet low-income requirements. Last year, the SFR provided Christmas presents to 59 families for a total of 123 children.

Civic groups, church groups and school groups are encouraged to adopt a family or a child during the Christmas drive. If you would like to “adopt” a child or family for Christmas, e-mail Oas at cashmagnet@vvm.com or call her  at 947-9471 for details. Contributions can be sent to:  Salado Family Relief Fund, P.O. Box 461, Salado, TX 76571.

The SFRF protects the identity of the children receiving the gifts. No groups or individuals will know the names of the children they have agreed to adopt.