David McBeth, professor of Art, received the Harold Love Outstanding Community Service Award.
The Harold Love Outstanding Community Service award is sponsored by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and is named after the late state representative Harold Love, who was instrumental in passing legislation to create community service recognition programs at the state level in 1991.
McBeth was nominated by Dr. George Daniel, with letters of recommendation from Chancellor Dr. Keith Carver and University Relations.
McBeth, has been an educator at UTM for over 20 years and has implemented many community service events in Martin, such as Empty Bowls and Cups for a Cure.
The Empty Bowls program began in 2003 when McBeth got the idea to partner with WeCare Ministries and other potters to make ceramic bowls and serve soup in them to people who made a donation to the ministry. As a gift for a donation, the donor’s get to keep the handmade bowls.
In February 2018, Empty Bowls celebrated its 15th anniversary. In celebration of the anniversary, McBeth and some of his students made 1,500 bowls and raised over $13,000 for WeCare Ministries.
“I know the ministry is grateful to David and his students for their unending work to create the bowls and organize the event each year, and those the ministry serves are appreciative as well,” Carver said.
One hundred percent of the proceeds from the Empty Bowls program goes directly to WeCare Ministries for their food mission.
Cups for The Cure is a program that McBeth started in 2017 in memory of his mother who lost her battle to cancer in 2014. The event is held every year at the Wesley Foundation and the proceeds go to the Joliet Oncology-Hematology Associates, a foundation at the cancer center where McBeth’s mother received treatment.
In the first year Cups for the Cure raised around $4,800.
“My mission for Cups for The Cure is more narrowly focused on giving back directly to local foundations that work with cancer victims,” said McBeth.
For more information on the Harold Love Outstanding Community Service Award, visit https://www.tn.gov/thec/for-institutions/more/the-harold-love-outstanding-community-service-award.html
