Creativity and a Can-Do Spirit

When you were a kid, you probably built with blocks or Legos®, but did you ever use cans? This February, seven teams from the Belton area competed in Belton’s First Annual Canstruction® Competition, held at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor’s Mayborn Campus Center. Using their creativity, architectural design skills and a minimum of 1,000 cans, each team built an impressive structure, be it a house, a sculpture or something totally new (like the winning King TunaCANmun seen above). The event raised more than 15,000 pounds of food and more than $20,000 for the Helping Hands Ministry, the Belton-area food pantry. First Choice Power was the lead sponsor for the entire weekend, and we donated an additional 4,658 meals in honor of everyone who attended and voted for their favorite Canstruction.

Developed in New York City in 1992, Canstruction® has contributed more than 15 million pounds of food to community food banks around the world. While the organization has traditionally held competitions in larger cities, this year their efforts have expanded to include smaller food pantries.

Belton’s participating teams included:

• Students from Belton Middle School (two teams)
• Foundation United Methodist Church of Belton
• The youth ministry of Belton Nazarene Church
• The Belton Young Professionals
• Architectural Edge of Temple
• A group of Physician Assistants from the Internal and Family Medicine departments of Scott & White Memorial Hospital

Building began at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 10, and the teams had only three hours to get all of their cans in place. The public was then invited to come check out the sculptures and vote on their favorites. First Choice Power matched the canned food donations and voting dollars up to $5,000 as part of our Food First program to fight hunger here in Texas.

On Saturday, Feb. 12, the contest winners were announced at a gala awards dinner. “One CAN Rat Out Hunger” won Most Cans, Best Meal, People’s Choice & Honorable Mention. “U 2 Can Help” won Best Use of Labels, while “King TunaCANmun” won Structural Ingenuity & Juror’s Favorite, the overall winner. “Isn’t it aMAZEing what One Can Do?” won the CANtagious Spirit Award. Congratulations to all the winners! At the gala, Suzii Paynter from the Baptist General Convention of Texas gave a great presentation about food insecurity and what we can do to help those who live in poverty in Texas.