CAN-struction

We dedicated this week to recycling aluminum cans and I can't end the week without telling you about a TADA! exhibit I went to last December at New York City's World Financial Center. It's called Canstruction, a world-wide competition for a cause. A bunch of talented architects, engineers and contractors competed against each other to build larger-than-life structures using cans of food. Anyone can build a tower using cans, but can anyone build a peace sign like the one in the photo above? It's called "Give Peace a CAN-ce" that's made of 3000 cans of fruit.

See this symbolic sculpture called "Erase Hunger"? That's the goal of the design and construction industry when they established Canstruction. It's a volunteer effort to raise public awareness and collect donations for food banks [and you know the food banks really need it during these tough economic times]. Visitors were encouraged to bring a can of food. Even school children carried a can of food as their ticket to the field trip. It was so cute! At the end of the New York competition, all the food was donated to City Harvest.

I'm a big fan of Snoopy so I was easily drawn to this one called "Dog-gone eCANomic crisis". There were other cartoon characters like Mr. Potato Head, as well as Wall-E and Eve.

This one is called " CANda Hunger End?" which is a play on words of can & panda. The team who built this highlights the hunger crisis and a panda's crisis of poaching and a threatened habitat due to deforestation. It won the "Best Meal " Award for the use of healthy cans of food like tuna, organic soup and brown rice.

"Up, up and Buffet" takes you on a magical hot air balloon ride! It's made of 3,060 cans and the team specifically selected red, white & blue cans that symbolize the American CAN DO spirit.

This one is called "American Dream" and if you'll look closely, it's Michael Phelps' head [wearing goggles & swim cap] in a pool. He's getting a bad rap these days for irresponsibly taking marijuana...blah to that! But he'll best be remembered for winning 8 gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The architects who made this consciously chose tuna & salmon cans because Phelps is like a fish and these are healthy food.

The Seafarer won the "Structural Ingenuity" Award. The photo might not show it very well but it's like the sail is blowing in the wind. It uses 3,000 cans of tuna & chicken and the architects describe it as "Sailing into the New York harbor to unload a galley full of nutritious food at the docks of City Harvest."

There are just 7 out of the 40 structures that were on display, expressing the statement: MAKING A DIFFERENCE. CHANGING THE WORLD. ONE CAN.