Troy University held its 13th annual Can Castle Contest, now referred to as the Canless Castle Contest, last Wednesday afternoon. The event was a creative and engaging way to raise both awareness and food donations for child hunger and food insecurity in Pike County.
As of recent years, The Office of Civic Engagement turned to a “canless” competition to reduce the number of canned goods and focus on incorporating more of a variety of beneficial and accessible food items such as cereal, crackers, granola bars and more.
Chauntina Whittle, a Troy University alumna with a bachelor's degree in psychology from Luverne, Alabama, has worked in the Office of Civic Engagement for the past five years.
She shared why she believes the Canless Castle event is such a success every year.
“It gets students involved into their community in a big way,” Whittle said. “They get to be creative and do something fun with those items.
“I think Canless Castle is a creative spin on our regular food drive that you would participate in. This event, specifically, is a fun way to get people involved and aware of what’s going on while also addressing that need in this community.”
Student Involvement teamed up with the Office of Civic Engagement to help gather non-perishable food items for Troy's Backpack for Kids program. The program collects non-perishable food items and distributes bags of nutritional food items to kids throughout Pike County. Each bag consists of a breakfast item, a fruit item, a snack and an entree.
Fifteen teams in total participated in the event and had 20 minutes to build their castle before judging began. Approximately 5,788 total food items were collected for the Backpacks for Kids.
Whittle explained how this event can have a significant impact on the current food issues occurring in the community, helping the fight against hunger for Pike County.
According to the Office of Civic Engagement, the food insecurity rate in Pike County for children hovers around 20% and the child poverty rate hovers around 30%.
“It's overall helping the deficit of food insecurity among children in Pike County,” Whittle said. “It’s a very impactful and game-changing way to address the issue of food insecurity in the Troy community.”
Kindal Ansley, a sophomore criminal justice major with a minor in legal studies from Ozark, Alabama, participated in the event with Alpha Delta Pi. Their team also partnered with Alpha Kappa Alpha, Lambda Chi Alpha and Delta Kappa Epsilon, collecting 205 food items.
Ansley expressed how the event can have a positive impact on Troy’s community and aid in fixing the hunger issue.
“It's very important because not everybody is fortunate to have a meal,” Ansley said. “It's important that we have something going back to our food pantry, so they get the resources to eat because food is just a basic necessity to life.”
Ethan Ward, a senior global business major from Birmingham, Alabama, attended the event with Newman Ministries, which is in Newman 200. Their ministry organization collected 204 food items.
“It's a great opportunity,” Ward said. “Ultimately, the kids less fortunate, maybe they’re unable to receive certain things.
“Why don’t we share our own goods with other people?”
Ward also expressed what he hoped all students involved in the event would take away from this experience.
“One thing I hope everyone takes away from this event is simply to truly give,” Ward said. “Also, just something to take away outside of this event is to donate.
“It could just be like taking clothes to the Salvation Army.”
The contest recognized three winning teams for three different categories: most items collected, best castle for organization division and best castle for Greek division. Alpha Gamma Delta won most items collected, Newman Ministries won best castle for organization division and Chi Omega won best castle for Greek division, earing points as a part of Greek Week.
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