If you enjoy going on walks, tasting some local flavor from area restaurants, or both; you’re in luck.

May 3-5 will be the Tamaqua Hunger Weekend, which is sponsored by the Tamaqua Area Faith Fellowship Network. The goal is to collect food items and funds for Tamaqua’s food banks. There are two ways to participate this year, both providing ways to aid the community.

The sixth annual Hunger Walk is scheduled for Sunday. registration begins at 1:30 p.m., and the walk with start at 2 p.m. at the Tamaqua Community Arts Center. The length of the walk is about 1 mile on level ground in town.

After the walk, participants are invited back to the Art Center for ice cream. Walkers are asked to secure sponsorships.

“We had a lot of people participate last year,” said Paul Dodson, who coordinates the event. “We gathered food for the three food banks in Tamaqua; the Salvation Army, the Trinity United Church of Christ, and Primitive Methodist Church. We gave them each a third of the food and money that we raised.”

The Hunger Weekend has grown exponentially since its birth six years ago. “The first year I think we collected somewhere around $3,600 and 48 boxes of food,” Dodson said.

In 2018, however, the community came together to collect 126 boxes of food and raise $6,928. Where did the idea of Hunger Week come from?

“We were looking for an outreach to the community,” Dodson said. “I contacted George Taylor, who is chairperson of TAFFN and asked him what we could do in the community for a service project. … We got together, and that’s how that started, and it’s been going on ever since.”

The second event, slated May 15, is an Empty Bowl Dinner in the Founder’s Hall at Trinity UCC.

Tickets for dinner are $10 and available from TAFFN members and at the Tamaqua Chamber of Commerce office. Tickets are also available at the door on May 15. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. until the event concludes at 7:30. There will be an opportunity to win prizes, gift certificates and handcrafted ceramic bowls.

The events, which are TAFFN projects, are under the umbrella of the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership.

“We’ve done the Empty Bowl Dinner the last three years,” Dodson said. “We make ceramic bowls and you come in and pay a certain amount of money; you can taste one soup, or two soups, or all of them. All of it is profit, because the restaurant provides the soup for nothing.”