Bowls to feed the soul

With the help of community members, the owners of Wild at Art in Moscow are working to add a little “sparkle” to local efforts to feed hungry families on the Palouse.

The downtown paint-your-own pottery and canvas studio, owned by Joan Hofmann and Donald Stanziano, is seeking donations to help cover the cost of 500 ceramic bowls to free meal programs offered by local restaurants Bloom Cafe in Moscow and Oak on Main in Pullman.

Community members who’d prefer to donate their artistic ability to the project can lend their skills painting the blank bowls instead.

Stanziano said he and Hofmann covered the cost of the first 100 bowls and already have received commitments supporting another 150. With food banks overtaxed, particularly during the pandemic, Stanziano said food insecurity is a persistent problem, but there’s more to nourishing a human being than supplying them with food.

“Somebody who’s getting a donated meal is probably not having the best day or week or month of their life. To add a little sparkle, a little unexpected something extra, can’t hurt,” he said. “It’s just a matter of amplifying what two really community-minded restaurants are doing and saying, ‘we support that,’ and one of the ways we can support that is by adding a little something extra.”

Once they’re decorated, Stanziano brings the bowls to Bloom and Oak on Main to be included in their meal offerings, and while both are fueled by donations, the two programs have a few differences.

Bloom’s program, called “Feed a Family,” takes donations and uses them to craft a rotating menu of reheatable meals that are easy to prepare in about 45 minutes. Owner Nara Woodland said the meals are brought to a local elementary school Mondays and Fridays and the school will identify families that could use a little help and distribute the food. Woodland said the restaurant matches donations in food value. She said about 200 meals worth about $7,000 have been donated so far and Bloom has matched it dollar-for-dollar. She said part of the point of the program is to ensure families that are struggling to put food on the table know their community values them and that they are not forgotten.

“So many Americans are at that very fragile line of losing their financial stability, their ability to provide fresh, wholesome dinners and food for their family,” she said. “We really just want to help people.”

Oak on Main Manager Frank Maryott echoed this sentiment when discussing their program, saying the restaurant is just doing what they can to help its community in turbulent times. The Pullman program, called “Feeding Our Friends,” has been distributing free meals, no questions asked, from their downtown location 4-6 p.m. every Tuesday for more than a year. On a typical Tuesday, he said they give out between 150 and 200 meals — and somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 since the program began. He said the program is funded almost completely through donations.

Woodland and Maryott both said the inclusion of a little something extra has brought an added sense of joy to the meal programs.

A handful of local organizations including the Latah Recovery Center and some sororities and fraternities on the University of Idaho campus have volunteered to decorate the bowls before they’re given away. Taryn Packer, vice president of community service for the UI sorority Kappa Delta, said the program is attractive because not only does it fulfill community service hours required of members but it gives them an activity that promotes bonding.

“One girl did lavender flowers on hers and that took a long time but in the end, it looked absolutely beautiful,” she said. “Some of the girls love their bowls so much that they even want to buy them back.”

Stanziano said some of his favorite bowls carried messages like “made with love,” or “you matter.” He said these messages moved him because they speak to the heart of the effort.

“There’s feeding the body, fuel for the furnace, but there’s also feeding the heart, feeding the soul and feeding the mind,” he said. “I feel like this ties into that in terms of whoever getting one of these bowls, has been given a donated meal, but it just lifts their spirits a little bit — we’re feeding that part of the person.”

Scott Jackson can be reached at (208) 883-4636, or by email to sjackson@dnews.com.

“Somebody who’s getting a donated meal is probably not having the best day or week or month of their life. To add a little sparkle, a little unexpected something extra, can’t hurt.”

— Donald Stanzianoco-owner of Wild at Art in Moscow