Each year, members of the GLPG participate in a variety of community activities. Guild members donate their work to the Red Cross-sponsored Empty Bowls, an international fundraiser by potters to raise money for local food banks, shelters and soup kitchens and increase awareness of hunger-related issues.

Members present pottery demonstrations at the East Lansing Art Festival and for local art classes and other interested groups. For the first time, GLPG participated in the Greater Lansing Visitors Bureau's "Be A Tourist In Your Own Town" event on June 2, 2007. The Guild facility was open for viewing, with tours and pottery-making demonstrations offered by Guild members.

GLPG maintains a scholarship fund and each year provides a monetary award to a local organization for pottery-related activities. The most recent award was given to REACH, a non-profit neighborhood drop-in center for art serving the southwest area of Lansing.

Other recipients have included Michigan State University art students and Eastern High School's art program. Other past community activities have included:

Community Activities:

Empty Bowls
October 16, 2007 - a Tuesday
Lunch: 11:30 am to 1:30 pm
Dinner: 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm
Center for the Arts
Lansing, Michigan

Empty Bowls is a community activity with the goal of providing support for food banks, soup kitchens, and other organizations that fight hunger. Potters make and donate ceramic bowls, in which a simple meal of soup and bread is served. Guests may choose their bowls and keep the bowl as a reminder of hunger in the world.

The Lansing Empty Bowls fund raiser is organized and staffed by the Regional Food Distribution Center of the local American Red Cross, and made possible by the Lansing Center for the Arts, Spartan Water and Coffee, Lansing area potters, restaurants, bakeries and local musicians. The 2007 Empty Bowls will be held on Tuesday, October 16th at the Center for the Arts in downtown Lansing. For more information about Empty Bowls please visit their website at: www.emptybowls.net.

Pottery Demonstration...
at the East Lansing Art Festival, May, 2007

The East Lansing Art Festival invites local art guilds to provide demonstrations for the public. Veronica Joan Murphy gets an up-close demonstration on wheel-throwing from Eldon Clark at the Potters Guild demonstration booth at the 2007 Art Festival. Later, Keith Bassar transforms a wheel-thrown piece into an owl sculpture while Jun Ting Song and his mother Chun Li He watch.

WKAR 2004 Auction

For the 2004 WKAR-TV auction, members of the Potters' Guild collaborated to create "In Serenity", a delightful tea chest. It was auctioned on Saturday, April 17, 2004. The contents of the chest, four cups and a tea pot, were made by Wenfen Pan. The box was created by Margaret Brodbeck and Lissa and Bruce Barbour.

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