When they build it, they hope you’ll come.
That tweaked sentence from a classic movie line aptly summarizes organizers of the 11th Annual CANstruction fundraiser beginning today for area food banks.
In this event, volunteer builders sometimes create bridges with canned carrots and national landmarks with canned beans.
Nine teams of volunteers are preparing once again to stack the odds in the local fight against hunger with creativity and more when CANstruction opens with build day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at FairOaks Mall, 2380 25th St. in Columbus. The event runs through March 1.
CANstruction is an international design and engineering competition in which teams build large structures completely out of canned food. After the local competition, the cans used for building and those used by the public for voting for favorites are donated to the food banks of Love Chapel, Salvation Army and the Community Center of Hope.
Those food bank leaders have lauded CANstruction for helping at a time when the pantries often need a supportive boost following a flurry of holiday help. Community Center of Hope officials have said that their donated allotment from CANstruction sometimes has stretched as long as three months in helping area families have enough to eat.
Since the local CANstruction began, more than 300,000 cans of food have been donated to area food banks, organizers said.
Residents can vote for their favorite structure by donating cans of food in marked containers at the mall to highlight what is known as the People’s Choice Award. Other award winners will be selected by a panel of judges in the following categories: best meal, best use of labels, best original design, most cans and structural ingenuity.
Teams are expected to use about 40,000 cans in their designs this year, up slightly from last year’s 38,000.
About 9,000 residents within Bartholomew County’s census population of 78,000 live with food insecurity on a regular basis, according to organizers.
