wfn.org | ELCA Assembly Focus on Hunger, Contest Winners Announced

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

August 20, 1999

ELCA ASSEMBLY FOCUS ON HUNGER, CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED
99-CWA-36-LS

     DENVER (ELCA) -- More than 600 clay bowls were submitted by ELCA
college and university students in the first-ever Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA) Hunger Bowl Contest.
     Dr. Addie J. Butler, vice president of the ELCA, announced five
grand prize winners of the contest Aug. 18 at the ELCA Churchwide
Assembly.  Initiated to raise awareness for world hunger, the project a
is part of the church's celebration of the 25th anniversary of the World
Hunger Appeal.
     The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the
ELCA, is meeting here Aug. 16-22 at the Colorado Convention Center.
There are more than 2,500 people participating, including 1,038 ELCA
voting members.  The theme for the biennial assembly is "Making Christ
Known: Hope for a New Century."
     Bowls will be distributed to voting members -- one bowl will be
given to two persons in the same synod -- and they must develop a way to
share the bowl, said Kris Shafer, coordinator for volunteer development,
ELCA Department for Human Resources and developer of the ELCA Hunger
Bowl Project.
     Shafer got the idea for the project three years ago during a visit
to her alma mater, Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, one of the
28 ELCA colleges and universities.  As a community service project,
students made clay bowls, sold their artwork and donated money to
service agencies. Shafer said she thought the idea could be expanded to
raise awareness for the ELCA World Hunger Appeal and some 840 million
people who are hungry in the world.
     Students in the ELCA colleges and universities were invited to
participate in the bowl design contest.  More than 600 bowls were
submitted, most created by students.  The five grand prize winners will
each receive a monetary scholarship, and their work will be on display
at the ELCA churchwide offices in Chicago.  Juror, Keith Williams, ELCA
member and professor of art at Concordia College, St. Paul, Minn.,
selected 25 bowls for honorable mention.  Grand prize winners were
Heather Cook (two designs selected), Theil College, Greenville, Pa.;
Ryan Ramos, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D.; Matt Rude, Luther
College, Decorah, Iowa; and an unidentified student at Gustavus Adolphus
College, St. Peter, Minn.
     Winning bowls represented "sophisticated glazes" and "exploratory
pieces."  Bowls were judged on functional traditions, creativity,
innovation and the level of craft, Williams said.
     One of Cook's bowls arrived at the assembly broken.  In a juror's
statement, Williams compared this brokenness to people. "These vessels
may become a metaphor for our own brokenness or for the brokenness of
our world," he said.
     Williams said broken pieces of clay are used in developing nations
to create new vessels. Pieces of broken pots give new pots their
strength, he said.
     "The repaired pots are as valuable to us in the context of world
hunger as the ones which are whole. After all, isn't it Christ's
brokenness which makes us whole?" Williams said.
     Aid Association for Lutherans, a fraternal benefits organization,
Appleton, Wic., provided a $10,000 grant for the ELCA Hunger Bowl
project.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html