Companies make their offerings for Canstruction 2024

The lobby of the Carl Perkins Civic Center was a busy place Tuesday.

Fifteen local entities – non-profits, churches, companies and other groups – signed up to compete in this year’s edition of Canstruction.

Canstruction is one of the biggest food drives of the year Regional Interfaith Association (RIFA) has each year, and it’s their biggest fundraiser too.

The competitors gather loads of canned food and fashion those cans into a sculpture.

First Presbyterian Church put together a miniature version of their church building, complete with their tower that has the Carilion in it that would eventually play music once the canstruction was complete.

Jackson-Madison County Schools’ STEM coordinator Michelle Plyler was on hand for the school district’s creation along with a few other educators and a group of students, mainly from the Malesus Innovation Center.

“When we began planning our project, we decided to put together another version of the “I Love My Neighborhood” mural that was in Downtown,” Plyler said.

Plyler said it was shortly after that when the mural was damaged after the neighbors in The Blacksmith restaurant bought the building and knocked out part of the wall with the mural for a couple of doors. In recent days, the rest of the wall has been painted over, covering the rest of the mural.

“So we’re calling it the memorial to the mural,” Plyler said.

Toyota TBDN finished their project early, and it was an image of a TBDN truck delivering food to RIFA.

Regions Bank had a crew in place building a slice of pie.

A first-time company to the event was putting together something that not only brought food and funds to RIFA, but would help others who see it bring more money to the organization.

Hitachi Energy has had a presence in West Tennessee since buying the ABB factory in Alamo in 2020.

The corporation as a whole holds community involvement as a high priority value, and this year, the company has been present in Jackson – taking part in various career fair opportunities with JMCSS, being one of the first companies willing to sponsor the Madison County Fire Department’s Freedom Fest fireworks show, being a part of other big local events like Jackson International Food & Arts Festival and other such efforts.

“Hitachi knows that the people of the community are vital to the success of each of their locations, so they want the people of the company as well as the organization itself to be an active part of the community,” said Julia Ewoldt, the community outreach coordinator for Hitachi. “Having been around Jackson and West Tennessee all my life and being with Hitachi for right at a year now, I knew Canstruction would be a great event for us to be a part of.”

During their Canstruction debut, a group of engineers and creative people on their staff put their heads together and put together a plan that at first looks like there is no plan, until one reads or hears the explanation behind the design.

On the side facing the windows at the entrance to the Civic Center, cans of Bush’s Baked Beans face the outside, and they’re situated with cans of fruit salad, but their labels are facing inward into the construction with the dietary information of the cans being visible and in stark contrast with the dark green and brown of the bean cans.

“When people first walk up to it, they will think there’s nothing here, but actually there is,” Ewoldt said. “If people put their phones up to our project from a certain distance or even a photo of our project, they will see this is the QR code that will take their phone to the website where you can donate to RIFA.

“So we hope this will be an added way for people to donate that might not have otherwise.”

The groups had until Tuesday at 9 p.m. to finish their projects. Then they’ll be on display all day on Wednesday. Then Thursday night, RIFA will have its annual celebration of Canstruction complete with entertainment from comedian Mike Goodwin.

“We’re so grateful for all the support and all the effort these teams are putting in,” said Denise Walton, the community outreach coordinator for RIFA. “We’re looking forward to a fun evening on Thursday celebrating the work RIFA does and the work done by our competing teams.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news