PINEDALE — The Pinedale High School Chapter of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) hosted a wildly successful 2023 Souper Bowl, raising more than $12,500 for the local Angel Wreath program by creating and auctioning off 132 hand-thrown ceramic bowls. The 38 members of the NAHS served around 200 people during the third annual event held on Nov. 18. PHS art teacher Katie Facklam told the Roundup, “It was a wonderful evening with delicious food, big laughs and entertaining bidding wars. Most importantly, we kicked off the giving season with a lovely event to provide a special holiday for kids in our local community, which is the most beautiful thing.”

The funds raised were used to purchase Christmas presents for families enrolled in Pinedale’s Angel Wreath program, helping ensure they have gifts to unwrap on Christmas morning.

Hand-thrown

In preparation for the third annual Souper Bowl, Facklam’s ceramics students, from beginners to advanced and members of the NAHS, spent hours after school at their pottery wheels using their hands to shape clay into beautiful bowls of all shapes, sizes and designs. Students calculated and accounted for the percentages by which their ceramic pieces would shrink during the firing process. They learned how to center and cone the clay on the wheel and employed processes such as “wedging” to prevent air bubbles from forming in the material and “slip trailing” to create texture. The bowls were fired in the kiln, glazed and fired again before they were ready for bidding at the November auction. Top makers include Ceramics II students Elyn Bowers, who created nine bowls, and Graham Harber with six bowls.

Learning by leading

Students had a hand in every aspect of the event since Facklam uses the Souper Bowl as an opportunity for her students to lead and learn to organize. PHS students were tasked with planning, organizing and hosting the entire fundraiser, not just creating the soup bowls. Before the fundraiser, NAHS members and sophomores Alicia Dexter and Wren Hamilton designed promotional posters which they distributed throughout the community. Seniors Ana Mika and Trista Covill recorded a radio ad to help spread the word about the event.

Facklam assigned a student leader to oversee elements of the fundraiser, from the dinner decorations to serving, managing the live and silent auctions, accounting for the funds and cleaning up once the event ended. PHS senior Brooke Noble managed a crew of NAHS students working the soup and food service area where they offered 21 different soups, serving up five at a time, along with breads and desserts. Senior Josh Gosar was in charge of callers during the live auction. Covill was this year’s master of ceremonies. Mika was the student auctioneer. Dressed in cowboy hats and fringe, the pair worked the crowd, keeping folks entertained with soup puns, jokes and even a rap performance. They also provided the voice talent for the local ad on KPIN. Seniors Brody Hamby and Kataniya Stevens were the welcome table attendants, handling all of the money, meal sales and auction purchases while documenting auction winners and amounts throughout the event. Hamby also tracked the organization’s financials and expenditures for advertising leading up to the auction.

The 132 bowls hand-thrown and hand-built by PHS students were divvied up between the live and silent auctions, offered for sale at the door and given as gifts to folks like Heart and Soul Cafe’s Kathy Lee, who donated soup for the fundraiser.

A Lombardi-esque ceramic trophy was an added incentive to bidders this year. The Kuhn family took home the trophy for “Biggest, Baddest, Bidder” at the third annual event.

A tradition of giving

The first Souper Bowl was organized in 2021 by a group of seniors in PHS’s Class of 2022 — Alena Mika, Katie LaBuda, Cora Murphy and Allison Gregory — who wanted to raise funds for a local family in need. The 2021 event raised just under $8,000, allowing the Angel Wreath program to grant every wish on its list, from shoes to bicycles and food vouchers from Ridley’s. In 2022, the Souper Bowl collected more than $7,500 to fulfill community Christmas wishes. In its third year, the event saw record-breaking attendance as well as money raised, with a whopping $12,500 raised between the auctions and soup dinners.

The event became so popular that it outgrew its original venue at Rendezvous Pointe and in 2023 found a new home at the Pinedale Library’s Lovatt Room, but with around 200 people in attendance at the third annual event, the fundraiser is poised to expand beyond that space as well.

“It was an absolutely extraordinary event!” Facklam said.

Local businesses and organizations interested in sponsoring the 2024 Souper Bowl should contact Katie Facklam at Pinedale High School at 307-367-2137.