Monday night, Feeding Umpqua in Douglas County held their annual Empty Bowls Pick-up Party.

The Empty Bowls Dinner is one of the many events changed by COVID.

Instead of cancelling it completely, Feeding Umpqua decided to turn the in-person dinner into a pick-up party.

"When people first show up, they come to our check in table, they'll give us their name, and then they'll tell us what gift certificate they want," explained Feeding Umpqua manager, Sarah McGregor. "We have gift certificates from [Alexander's Greek, Bangkok West, Cup of Joe, Dianee's Deli, McMenamin's, and True Kitchen] to choose from. After they're done with their check in, they can come through and look at all the bowls that we have put out and displayed this year."

The bowls were made by people in the community, including students in the Roseburg High School ceramics program, the Arts Association, Over the Hill Ceramics and more.

"After they select their bowl, they indicate what wine they want. They can choose red, white, or a rose," McGregor said. "Then we help them get their wine and gift bag that is full of other things like the bread and dessert from Lighthouse Bakery, the soup mix that the food bank put together, and then they can take that and head home and enjoy a nice bowl of soup at home."

They were able to raise around $30,000.

But despite the success of the pick-up party, McGregor says they're not ready to abandon the in-person dinner just yet.

"I think we all really love the dinner. It's a great opportunity to share time with people in the community. But I felt like the pick-up party model was really successful, so maybe we'll do that for something else, or maybe do a little bit of both."

The funds will go towards the food bank's expenses, and will allow them to continue fighting hunger in Douglas County.