Three hundred empty bowls will be filled with soup when Circles of Troup County holds its fifth annual Empty Bowl fundraising dinner April 12. Director Sherri Brown said the event will feature program members and volunteers along with trivia and a silent auction.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Brown said. “We try to keep it more fun and kind of energetic, and it’s always powerful to hear from the people who are in Circles. That’s my favorite part.”

Circles of Troup County is a nonprofit that helps participants learn how to move from poverty to self-sufficiency.

“We don’t provide crisis funding or intervention,” Brown said.

“We’re helping people become stable, so what we give away is support, knowledge, encouragement and skills.”

Brown said volunteers and LaGrange College students painted and fired 300 bowls, which will be used at the event. People who attend get a bowl and pick a soup.

At the end of the night, participants get to take home their bowls.

“It’s a little unique, I guess. I don’t think I’ve been to a fundraiser where they served soup,” Brown said.

The event sold out last year when they made the event a dinner fundraiser, according to Brown.

“We’re limited by the number of bowls we that we have, and we had 300 bowls,” she said. “We sold out last year, and it looks like we will sell out this week.”

The event will be held at Del’avant from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

“Without the support of the community financially, and as volunteers, we absolutely could not do what we do,” Brown said.

“We are a nonprofit we don’t have any really large funders, so that’s how we keep going and doing what we do.”

Tickets are $20 each or a table of ten for $175. To get tickets, email circlesoftroup@gmail.com or message them on their Facebook page.