BUCHANAN — Saturday, a small room inside the Buchanan Art Center was covered in gray pieces of clay. Some were shaped into hearts, while others were shaped into bowls. Some were plain, and others were marked with intricate details. Despite their differences, each piece served a common purpose — to help end hunger in Buchanan.

This weekend, the Buchanan Art Center hosted community workshops for its annual Empty Bowls fundraiser. For the workshop, community members were invited to create pottery pieces and bowls to be sold at the yearly empty bowls soup and chili dinner from 4 to 7 p.m. April 24 at Buchanan High School. Meal tickets to the event are $5 for adults and $3 for children. All proceeds from meal and pottery sales at the event will support local food pantry Redbud Area Ministries. Empty Bowls is made possible by a partnership between Buchanan Art Center, Buchanan Community Schools, RAM and local potters.

“This is our 25th year, so we are really excited,” said Cathy Tapia, pottery instructor and event organizer. “This is probably one of the longest-running Empty Bowls projects in the country. I think the coolest thing about Empty Bowls is that it involves everyone, from preschoolers to senior citizens. Every elementary student in Buchanan makes something in clay, and the middle school art students and high school ceramics students participate. We have professional potters that come in, and they make something, along with art students at the art center. We also have these community workshops where anyone in the area who wants to make something can attend.”

During the community workshop, participants could either buy the pieces they made or donate them to the fundraiser.

One community member who participated in Saturday’s workshop was Lucrecia Holt, of Niles. After participating in the Empty Bowls project last year, Holt said she knew she needed to join in again, this year bringing her family with her.

“I love that they give the community this opportunity to participate and actually make something,” Holt said. “It’s not only the process of doing it that’s fun, but it’s also that it goes to a good cause.”

Last year, Empty Bowls served more than 450 dinners and donated $5,000 to RAM, the largest cash donation the food pantry received that year. As this year marks the fundraiser’s 25th anniversary, Tapia is hoping that Empty Bowls can exceed those numbers. In addition to the annual dinner, event organizers are selling T-shirts and inviting people who have participated in the fundraiser over the past quarter of a century to celebrate the milestone.

“I love that [Empty Bowls] is intergenerational, open to the community and goes to such a great cause,” Tapia said. “It stays in the community, so we are really hoping to help our neighbors and our friends with this project.”

While the community workshops to create bowls for the event may have passed, Tapia said community members can still support the cause by attending the dinner on April 24.

“There will be over 1,000 pieces of pottery to purchase that night,” she said. “It’s open to everyone.”