Monroe Elementary students, from left, Kelsey Williams, Matthew Laub, Jordan McKinley, and Taylor Bayless with their St. Nick artwork made with chili beans, corn, peaches, pears, sausages, tomatoes, apple sauce, tomato soup, beans in a bag, jam, mac and cheese, peanut butter, chicken noodle soup cans and plastic bags.
Every year the New Richmond Exempted Village School District holds a Food Drive for the local New Richmond Food Pantry.

The sixth grade artists at Monroe Elementary School designed and created sculptures from these donations and were inspired by Canstruction.org. 

“Each team of artists planned and executed a sculpture that represented their team, the season, things they care about or simply their interests,” Monroe visual arts teacher Adrian Vance Hawk said. “The 6th graders exhibited a great amount of team work and problem solving skills in this effort to make an impermanent work of art.”

Canstruction, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that holds annual design and build competitions to construct giant sized, structures made entirely out of canned food. At the close of the competition all of the Cansculptures (TM) are dismantled food used in the structures is donated to the local food banks for distribution to community emergency feeding programs.

“In addition to viewing many different sculptures on the Canstruction website, the 6th graders also talked about poverty, hunger and other social issues in the world and they made a list of things that they can do to make the world a better place,” Hawk said.

The New Richmond Exempted Village Food Drive collected more than 28,000 food items for the New Richmond Food Pantry.