About 15 Napa County potters and several student artists have spent recent weeks shaping roughly 200 ceramic bowls by hand, each one destined to be filled with soup, stew or another bowl-centric dish and carried home by a $75 ticket holder on Sunday, September 13. The event, Empty Bowls, runs from 1 to 3 p.m. at The Westin Verasa hotel at 1314 McKinstry St. in downtown Napa, with Napa chef Ken Frank of La Toque preparing the dinner alongside guest chefs.
The fundraiser, first reported by the Napa Valley Register, benefits Abode, the Bay Area nonprofit that manages the 102-bed South Napa Shelter on Hartle Court and operates free food pantries at permanent supportive housing sites across the county. Abode served almost 1,100 people in Napa County last year, according to the newspaper's reporting, and the shelter serves hot lunch six days a week using locally grown produce that chefs shop for at the Napa farmers market. Napa County lists South Napa Shelter at 100 Hartle Court in Napa and describes it as serving individuals 18 years and older.
The event carries the theme “no bowl should go empty,” and its concept traces back to Michigan in the early 1990s, when art educators Lisa Blackburn and John Hartom created Empty Bowls to fight hunger in their community. That grassroots idea, born when the pair organized a soup lunch where guests kept student-crafted ceramic bowls, grew into the nonprofit Imagine/RENDER Group in 1991 and has since become an international model for hunger-relief fundraising, according to Wittenberg University.
A Local Effort Two Decades in the Making
Napa's version is spearheaded by Sam Tubiolo, who has been involved with Empty Bowls events around California for more than 20 years and organized last year's Napa gathering. Wendi Moore, community engagement coordinator at Abode Services Napa, assists Tubiolo with the event. Abode participants experience food insecurity, and organizers frame the sale of hand-thrown bowls as a direct way for the community to respond.
Ceramic artist Karen Winograde is among the roughly 15 potters contributing work this year, and student artists have also pitched in pieces for the sale. The dinner itself will be filled directly into the bowls attendees purchase, meaning each ticket holder leaves with both a meal and a piece of locally made pottery.
Where the Money Goes
Proceeds from Empty Bowls will support programs expanding Abode clients' access to fresh foods, including the nonprofit's free food pantries at permanent supportive housing sites such as Valley Lodge Apartments, Valle Verde and Heritage House. Those developments are among the supportive-housing sites named in connection with Abode's food-access work. The Gasser Foundation, one of Empty Bowls' supporters this year, also donated the land used to build the Valle Verde complex, per GrantCue.
Empty Bowls also receives support from the Arts Council of Napa Valley, NorthBay Health, and the Gasser Foundation. The arts council provided a community fund grant toward the event.
Hunger Data Behind the Handmade Bowls
The fundraiser lands against a backdrop of worsening food insecurity in Napa County. A Feeding America report found 11.3% of Napa County residents were food-insecure in 2023, rising to 12.4% in 2024; among children, the rate climbed from 13.8% in 2023 to 17.6% in 2024. Napa County's official Point-in-Time count recorded 428 individuals experiencing homelessness in January 2026, a 14% increase from 374 individuals counted in January 2025. According to Napa County, the overall count of people experiencing homelessness increased by 54 individuals between January 2025 (374) and January 2026 (428). In a July 22, 2025, news release, Napa County said its Point-in-Time Count had revealed a second consecutive year of decline in homelessness before the subsequent January 2026 increase.
School-based homelessness is a separate measure from the annual point-in-time census, which can miss families living doubled up in shared housing. Those figures underscore pressure on low-income households even in a county known for wealth and wine.
A Kitchen Door Into Abode's Daily Meals
Abode's daily operations include hot lunch at the South Napa Shelter, according to the Napa Valley Register. Abode describes itself as a Bay Area nonprofit working to solve issues surrounding homelessness through outreach, shelter and housing programs.
Ken Frank, who opened the original La Toque in Los Angeles in 1979 before relocating the restaurant to Napa Valley in 1998 and moving it into The Westin Verasa Napa in 2008, brings considerable culinary weight to the fundraiser; the restaurant held a Michelin star there for 14 consecutive years, per Wikipedia. The Westin Verasa itself opened in 2008 along the Napa River in downtown Napa.
Tickets and information for the September 13 event are available at abode.org/empty-bowls-2026.
