Cheers to Ending Hunger: CANstruction 2018
[1]A vital part of the culture [2] at HGC Group of Companies [3] is building our community. CANstruction [4] is an international community service project with more than 170 cities participating. Architects, engineers, designers, and contractors compete, designing and building fantastic giant-sized structures entirely out of canned and packaged foods.
The Cincinnati chapter benefits the Freestore Foodbank. [6] With the support of the design and construction industry, thousands of hungry people are fed, and a greater awareness of issues surrounding hunger are brought to the public’s attention. CANstruction has grown to become one of the world’s largest drives for food bank donations.
HGC Group of Companies: “Cheers to Ending Hunger”
This year, HGC Group of Companies (HGC Construction, SSRG, and Stanton Millworks) all teamed up with M+A Architects [7] to design our structure. What did we design? A 10′ tall, 7’ wide beer stein, with creative placement of can labels recreating the Cincinnati flag. We called it, “Cheers to Ending Hunger.” With the help of more than 10 volunteers from both HGC and M+A, we completed construction in a little under five hours. And thanks to our community’s generous support, we raised $5,000 in donations to help us complete our goal.
Since its beginning, Cincinnati CANstruction has contributed over 800,000 pounds of food to the Freestore Foodbank. That’s enough to provide over 681,000 meals! In 2017, Cincinnati collected more than 80,000 pounds of food, ranking 6th on the list of Top 25 Cities with the most food donated to food banks.
As of April 13, the total number of cans, bottles, boxes, and bags gathered this year was 74,483! Our team proudly took home the award of “Best Meal” thanks to our use of black beans, tomatoes, potatoes, tuna, marshmallows, and coffee—yum! Our structure is on display until April 29 at the Weston Art Gallery [8] in the Aronoff Center for the Arts.
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