Pond makes a difference during CANstruction

This year marks the seventh year that Pond’s Atlanta team has participated in Canstruction Atlanta and the second year that Pond’s North Houston team has participated in the Canstruction-Houston event. Canstruction is a nonprofit charity which hosts an annual competition among local architectural and engineering firms to design and construct structures made entirely of canned foods. All food from the Canstruction Atlanta event is donated to the Atlanta Community Food Bank and Canstruction Houston donations are given to the Houston Food Bank.

“During the past seven years, the Pond Atlanta team has built some very impressive structures,” said Chris Jenkins, Director of Operations for Defense and Aerospace. “More importantly, through these competitions, we have donated thousands of dollars and countless pounds of food as well as increased awareness to the problem of hunger in our community.”

This year the Pond Atlanta team created the “Can Goddess,” a sister to a recognizable Atlanta community attraction, the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s “Earth Goddess.” The “Can Goddess” offers nourishment and resources for life, we depend on her to nurture and sustain us through the bounty that she provides. The Can Goddess utilizes Mother Earth’s gifts so that none of her children go hungry. Overall the Atlanta Pond team utilized 6,960 cans of vegetables, meats and fruits, as well as 864 packages of potatoes and 416 bottles of water, equaling 8,240 total food items.

The North Houston Pond team built a Christmas Tree, utilizing 2,534 cans of food with the overall amount of food donated totaling at 80,980 pounds from 23 different teams.

 

“We felt as though our design was pretty special in the sense that not only did we want people to look forward to the holidays and better times following the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, but we were told it was the first Christmas tree built in the entire 22 years that the event has been going on in Houston,” said Mechanical Engineer Matthew Reno.

 

Chris Jenkins has served as the team leader for the Pond Atlanta group and, this year, acted as Co-Chair for the Canstruction Atlanta event. As Co-Chair, Jenkins helped with the mid-season fundraiser (Atlanta United tailgate and ticket sales), coordination of judging for the built structures, logistics for the awards gala and provided assistance to the Chair. Jenkins said it meant a great deal for him to be able to collaborate with Canstruction Atlanta, the Atlanta Community Food Bank and the other companies that compete in the event year to year.

“I have enjoyed working alongside the many people at Pond that have participated in this event by generously donating their time and money to this great cause,” Jenkins said. “We have learned a lot about building things with cans, but more importantly, we’ve been very fortunate to see how the Canstruction event helps our community.”

The Atlanta and Houston offices raised a total of $15,071.66 for each team build event.

In 2018, Jenkins will be Chair of the Canstruction Atlanta event, which will be the 20th anniversary of Canstruction. “I look forward to adding a few things to the event in order to highlight this special milestone,” said Jenkins.

Planning for Canstruction Atlanta 2018 will start in February/March next year.

To learn more about Canstruction click here.

Watch a time lapse video taken by OxBlue during the Atlanta Canstruction build day:

 

View photos from our Pond Canstruction teams below: