The Food Bank of Northeast Georgia held its 20th Annual Empty Bowl Luncheon on Wednesday at The Classic Center in Athens.

The annual event honors those individuals, agencies and businesses that help the Food Bank. The event, featuring soups and sandwiches, was sold out.

“It was absolutely wonderful. We wish we had more seats for everybody and we will next year,” Food Bank President John Becker said.

The event showed how the community came together to support the agency that serves 14 counties in northeast Georgia, according to Becker.

Several awards were presented:

• The Volunteer of the Year for the Athens Branch award went to Patton O’Neill, while the Volunteer of the Year for the Mountain Branch went to Brenda Cook.

• The Volunteer Group of the Year for Athens went to Caterpillar Inc., while the Mountain award went to Sparkles.

• The Dedicated Service Award was presented to Paul Early.

• The Student Volunteer of the Year award was given to Ines Tulic.

The Feeding Hope Awards were made to young people for essays and artwork.

The essay winners were Sam Kiefer of Barrow Elementary School and Carolina Turner of Clarke Middle School. The artwork winners were Chase Bernt of Barrow Elementary and Charlotte Moser of Clarke Middle.

Numerous other awards were presented to businesses, schools and agencies for various efforts they made for the Food Bank, including collecting cans of food.

The counties served by the Food Bank are Banks, Barrow, Clarke, Franklin, Habersham, Hart, Jackson, Madison, Oconee, Oglethorpe, Rabun, Stephens, Towns and White.