For the first time since 2019, Good Samaritan Ministries’ Empty Bowl Project took inside the Brownwood Coliseum after being limited to a drive-by only event the last two years due to COVID.

“We’re so excited to be in the Brownwood Coliseum and we were hopeful that people were also going to be excited and this turnout from the time we opened the doors has exceeded our expectations,” GSM Executive Director Leesa Stephens said Thursday afternoon. “We’ve got so much soup, the vendors were very excited to participate, so I feel like we will exceed our goal, but that’s because the people of Brown County are excited to be part of the Empty Bowls Project.

The Empty Bowls Project serves as GSM’s largest fundraiser of the year and 90% of the proceeds stay in Brown County and benefit local hunger ministries such as the Food Pantry, Food for Thought, Homebound Program, Homeless Boxes, the Deer Project, the Pig Project and the Mobile Food Pantry.

The Food for Thought program is providing meals to 250 kids a week on 15 campuses, the Deer Project has generated 19,283 pounds of venison this year, and 28 swine were recently purchased at the Brown County Youth Fair in conjunction with the Pig Project.

The remaining 10% is donated to one of three international hunger relief organizations and this year GSM has selected Samaritan’s Purse, which takes part in a variety of ministry projects nationally and internationally.

Empty Bowls meals of soup, crackers and water were served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for a donation of $10 per bowl.

This year, just 500 bowls were ordered compared to the 1,000 in years past.

“In the past we’ve ordered about 1,000 bowls to have different groups paint, but this year because the event is so early in the year, we have a very small window of time to get them painted, get them to Kohler for them to fire, and get them ready for the event,” Stephens said. “We only ordered 500, but everyone who comes to the event will get a bowl. We still have some ceramic bowls from last year, so we have plenty of bowls. But this year we only bought 500 to paint, and they went really fast.”

Coming up on Saturday, March 19 from 10 a.m. to noon, GSM will be holding a special Empty Bowls Project sale in the Resale Store.

“If you come to Empty Bowls you’ll get a VIP pass then you’ll get in early to the resale event,” Stephens said earlier.

For more information, visit www.goodsambwd.org.