Massachusetts artist raises $20,000 for food banks, thanks to his homemade wooden bowls

published 10 January 2022

Artist Mike Mittelman came up with a simple way to raise funds for food banks while sharpening his woodworking skills.

Through his Bowls for Food organization, Mittelman sends wooden bowls that he makes in his Ashburnham, Massachusetts, garage to people who send in receipts showing their donation to a food bank. Since the start of the pandemic, Bowls for Food has raised more than $20,000 to fight food insecurity across the United States, WCVB reports.

Mittelman, who is also a software developer and furniture maker, is passing along his knowledge to the next generation. Early on in the pandemic, when his kids said they needed something to do, Mittelman told them, "Let's see if we can take our boredom and do something with it." They headed out to the garage, where Mittelman showed them how to make bowls, explaining how to sand the wood and make it shiny. "It's really fun to be in the moment, in a really visceral way," he told WCVB.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.