The annual event is open to the public, and proceeds from this year's banquet will benefit the Middletown Food Bank and Middletown Valley People Helping People.

For a donation of $5 per person, or $15 per family of three or more, visitors receive a modest meal of soup, bread, a beverage and a cookie.

Nancy Newkirk, a teacher and service learning coordinator at Middletown High School, said the small size of the meal is intended to focus attention on the fact that not everyone has abundant food.

"What we're trying to do is give people an idea of what many people face on a daily basis," she said. "We try to make them aware that just because Middletown is considered an affluent area, there are still many people in the area that go to bed hungry."

Dinner begins at 7 p.m., and during the banquet, outstanding students from the feeder schools (Middletown, Myersville and Wolfsville elementary schools and Middletown Middle and High schools) will be recognized.

Recognition will also go to the winners of an art and writing contest based on a book with a hunger or poverty theme. This year's selection is "The Runaway Rice Cake," by Ying Chang Compestine. This children's book follows a Chinese family on the eve of Chinese New Year, as they donate their only rice cake to a hungry woman, only to return home to a feast provided by generous neighbors.

For the contest, students are divided into categories by age groups and write essays or poems or draw artwork based on the book. Members of Middletown United Church of Christ are judging submissions this year, and the artwork will be on display at the banquet.

The dinner will be preceded by performances from 6 to 7 p.m. by the Middletown Middle School orchestra and Middletown High School choir.

While supplies last, visitors may also take home pottery bowls fashioned by students at Myersville Elementary School and Middletown High School. The empty bowls are to serve as reminders of the hunger faced by the community's less fortunate, Newkirk said.

Finally, a silent auction will give visitors the opportunity to purchase bowls and other hand-crafted items made by local artists.

This year marks the 10th year that the Middletown schools have staged an Empty Bowls banquet.

"We're kind of proud of that," Newkirk said.

Empty bowls will also come to the Brunswick High School feeder system on April 8.

The program, beginning at the high school at 6 p.m., includes a talk by biology teacher David Herber, a shelter volunteer, on the topic of hunger and the homeless.

Dinner follows at 7 p.m., and there will also be a silent auction.

Brunswick service learning coordinator Bill Turney said the event raised $3,100 for shelters last year and the school system hopes to raise at least $3,500 this year.

In other related activities, Brunswick students will be collecting money to buy blankets for homeless people as part of the "Coins for Covers" campaign. They will also be compiling hygiene kits comprising toothbrushes, soap, shampoo and other items.

Valley Elementary School students are conducting a food drive, and at Brunswick Middle School on April 4, educators will be spending the night in the cold to raise money for the homeless.