Suzanne Tormollen of TABLE discusses their upcoming Empty Bowls event – and discusses TABLE’s impending move!
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. You can listen to the full interview here.
Aaron Keck: We are joined in the studio right now by Suzanne Tormollen who is the director of community relations for TABLE. Suzanne, thank you so much for being with us today. Good morning.
Suzanne Tormollen: Good morning. Thank you.
Keck: Tell us about the Empty Bowls event. This is the 10th annual event this year?
Tormollen: Yes, this is the 10th annual event for Empty Bowls, and this is the first time we will be in person again in several years. We are also at a new location. Typically, we are at Weaver Street Market, but we are at Carrboro Town Commons this year. We are excited about that. We have some great restaurants joining us this year to donate soup, bread and cookies. Weaver Street Market, Venable, Market And Moss, Root Cellar, Grata Diner and The Carolina Inn.
Keck: These are good places.
Tormollen: Yeah, we are excited. They have got some really fun soups. There’s butternut squash, potato leek, tomato basil… maybe a little chicken noodle soup too.
Keck: I am ready for this right now.
Tormollen: Now if the weather can get a little cooler.
Keck: Well, we have got a couple of weeks, so October will be cool, I’m sure. I grew up in Michigan. I remember snow in October sometimes. What is the experience like for people who go? And if people haven’t been before and they’re thinking about it, what will they experience?
Tormollen: Really over 10 years, it has become a community tradition in Carrboro. People gather for the afternoon. They enjoy the food. They enjoy the live music that is going to be there. It is just a really great feeling. Everyone comes together for the cause of feeding local kids in our community. Our potters have joined in, and we have over 200 bowls that have been donated so far.
Keck: There are gorgeous bowls every year.
Tormollen: There are, and we are still collecting them and have more coming in. We have three different levels of tickets. There is a VIP ticket, which will get you early access to select your own bowl online. In addition to all the great food that will be at the event, when VIP ticket purchasers arrive their bowls will already be prepackaged for them to take. The second ticket is “bowl and food”. There you can come eat and you get to look at all the bowls and you get to pick which ones you want. Also, if you already have a lot of bowls and you just like to come enjoy the experience and have some food, you can buy a ticket for that as well.
Keck: This is an annual tradition, and it is a really terrific event. It all goes to support the work that TABLE does year-round to feed local kids.
Tormollen: Right now, we are feeding 800 kids per week, and we are delivering door to door. This is something we changed with COVID, and once the school shut down, we had to redo our operations. Now, three days a week we have about 45 volunteers who will deliver 800 bags of food to the kids in our community. It was a great change for us. We are reaching more kids, and we are providing more food in the bag since the kids aren’t getting them at school. There is more fresh food. So, things are great, and we are busy as anything.
Keck: Is the need growing still?
Tormollen: The need is growing. Right now, there are 5,000 kids in Orange County on free and reduced meals. We are serving 800 per week. There is a gap there, and right now TABLE is bursting at the seams in our current space of 1,944 square feet. We can’t serve any more kids in that space. We can’t grow our food access and nutrition and education programs, and when we have volunteers in, we are stepping on top of each other. The need is growing, and we definitely want to continue to fulfill that need.
Keck: So, you’re moving, right?
Tormollen: We have exciting news! Today, we are announcing the public phase of our Room to Grow capital campaign and the funds from that are going to support the renovation and move into the new space that we have purchased. The new space is at 311 East Main Street. It is literally right down the road from where we are today. The new space is just going to provide us with so much more to help feed kids in the community. There is going to be room for a loading dock. There will be room for walk-in refrigeration because right now we can only keep so much fresh produce in our office. There will be a larger warehouse space for non-perishables. One thing we are really excited about is that there will be classroom space and meeting space. We can start to really partner with the families we serve and other local nonprofits just to help feed the local kids.
Keck: Awesome. Again, TABLENC.ORG is the website. Go there and find out more. The capital campaign is going on right now. The Empty Bowls event is coming up on October 9th, which is a Sunday in Carrboro Town Commons. It is going to be a terrific event. If people can’t make it to that event, what can they do to support TABLE otherwise?
Tormollen: There are a couple of things they can do. Our goal for the capital campaign is $3.25 million. We have raised 60% of that, so we are at $1.95 million. We are excited also to announce today that there is a matching gift challenge. For every dollar that is donated to the capital campaign between now and September 28th, they will be matched up to $50,000. That is in thanks to Molly and David Shivers who have been longtime supporters of TABLE. People can also go to our website and support our operations. It is $20 a bag to feed our kids, $80 a month. You can become a monthly donor which helps us to predict our operational cost throughout the year, or you can be a one-time donor. There are different options.
Keck: As we wrap up our conversation, is there anything else that folks need to know about any of that?
Tormollen: I think we covered a lot but come out on October 9th to Empty Bowls. It’s being presented by Shannon Kennedy of Hodge and Kittrell. Also, visit our website. You will be able to click on the homepage and read all about our capital campaign and how you can donate there.
Keck: Empty Bowls is Sunday, October 9th. Mark your calendars from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Carrboro Town Commons. You can get your tickets today at TABLENC.ORG . Go there and find out more about the capital campaign, Room to Grow, for that new location, which they will be moving into before you know it. Thank you so much for being here today.
Tormollen: Thank you.
(Feature Image via TABLENC.com)
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