VALDOSTA – Thousands of meals will be provided to residents of the community through the local arts centre’s annual Empty Bowls fundraiser.

At a gallery opening Monday, the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts donated $ 2,200 to Second Harvest of South Georgia.

For the biannual fundraiser, 220 bowls were made this year; 10 of them were made by students at Valwood School, according to center staff. The others were made by pottery teacher Julie Smith and her students.

Cory Hansen, Second Harvest vice president of finance, said the funding would provide just over 17,000 meals.

“I love when the community helps the community and it’s a huge help for us when we can distribute,” he said. “For every dollar we receive, we can provide 8.7 meals to families in need, which goes a long way in providing food for hungry families.”

The concept of Empty Bowls started at a university and is now a nonprofit, said Bill Shenton, art curator at the center in the past. It initially included an exhibition of photographs that highlighted hunger.

Hansen said Empty Bowls is a “constant source of giving” that keeps Second Harvest going.

With one organization helping another, he said people are able to notice the good that can be done in the community.

During the art reception, which featured three new solo exhibitions, writer Trent Busch also hosted a book signing for two of his poetry collections.

He is professor emeritus at Valdosta State University, where he taught American literature and modern poetry for 30 years.

Busch said his poetry is personal.

“I think poetry is another art form that binds us to human beings, and poetry is, for me, the all-time art of writing,” he said. “It’s the one that’s the hardest to do and it’s the one that brings us to the center of things and makes us face who we are and who we are. … Poetry, for me, is the supreme art.

The subject of “Plumb Level and Square” is Busch’s workshop, where he spent about 30 years making furniture, including furniture for his granddaughter.

Busch said he was in the business for fun rather than money.

“The poems flow from this relationship,” he said.

“West Virginians” is Busch’s third body of work and reflects its original state.

“All of the poems in the book have to do with the people who live in West Virginia, the culture of the mountains and the culture that I have experienced since growing up there,” he said. “The poems, of course, imply my love for this state as my place of origin.”

Busch’s writing is on Amazon.