Community Support and Giving

At Mudcraft, community support takes a few different forms. We create opportunities for people to come together around clay, and we share our studio resources and handmade work to benefit local organizations and events.

The Giving Plates Initiative: Bringing people together through hands-on workshops, public pop-ups, and shop sales of handcrafted plates.
Artwork and Event Donations: Sharing handcrafted ceramics and gift certificates for select studio events to help local nonprofits raise funds.

The Giving Plates Initiative: Crafting a Culture of Care and Connection

For five years, Mudcraft has fostered creative courage and community connection. The Giving Plates Initiative extends that spirit beyond our studio, contributing to the network of nonprofit organizations that care for and strengthen our region.

What is a Giving Plate?

A Giving Plate is a handmade ceramic vessel meant to be enjoyed, then passed along. It’s a kind of “perpetual potluck” in motion: a plate gets filled with food and gifted to celebrate a milestone, offer comfort, or simply say I’m thinking of you. Each recipient enjoys the gift and, if they choose, refills the plate and passes it along, keeping a cycle of generosity and loving kindness in motion. Sometimes a Giving Plate finds a home where it wants to stay. That’s okay, too.

How the Initiative Evolved

The idea sprouted in fall 2024, when a client introduced studio owner Lisa Minetti to the concept of a “giving plate.” Lisa was intrigued. It felt like a natural extension of her Plates with Purpose collection, a body of work inspired by the poetry and philosophy of connection.

While selling early Giving Plates at Shelburne Vineyard’s Harvest Festival, a fundraiser for Feeding Champlain Valley, a conversation with a local advocate sparked a deeper realization: when facing hardship, people are often placed strictly on the receiving end of care. A Giving Plate disrupts that dynamic. It creates space for the joy of giving back.

That insight transformed the project from a studio product into a community practice, setting in motion our #PlateItForward efforts.

Moving Beyond the Studio

Today, these efforts bring neighbors together in our studio and across the region to decorate handmade plates and plate them forward through local partners. We’ve partnered with groups like the Colchester Community Food Shelf and the Heineberg Senior Center, and brought our workshops to community events including the South Burlington Farmers Market and the South End Get Down.

"What I love most about this project is how it makes our goodwill tangible. In my Italian family, we gather around food and share it as a way of showing love, and I feel that same spirit in the perpetual potluck of a Giving Plate. Plus, the project has inspired me to learn how to draw cute things.”
— Lisa Minetti, Owner & Teaching Artist

Join Us to #PlateItForward

Host a Group Workshop

Bring your group together for purpose-driven art making. We host organizations for community service projects and customized fundraising events that support a local cause of your choice.

Partner with us

Sponsor Supplies

Help keep the Giving Plates Initiative going. Your contribution covers the costs of clay, glaze, and firing so handmade plates cn keep reaching our neighbors.

Contribute

Join a Community Workshop

Gather with us in the studio or at a local pop-up. Decorate a handmade plate to give someone in your own orbit, or to share through one of our nonprofit partners.

Get Updated

Colchester Food Shelf plate
Mudcraft designs
At the South End Get Down
A Mudcraft design
A Mudcraft event
A Colchester Food Shelf event
Mudcraft designs
At the South Burlington Farmers Market
Heineberg Community Center event
Heineberg Community Senior Center Plates
A Mudcraft design
Colchester Food Shelf event
Colchester Food Shelf plate
At the South End Get Down

Donation Requests

Supporting Our Vermont Neighbors

We deeply value the vibrant network of nonprofit organizations working to make Chittenden County and Vermont a better place. Each year, Mudcraft donates a limited number of ceramic pieces and gift certificates for local silent auctions and fundraising events.