1-16 What is Canstruction?

What is Canstruction?

This morning we attended an annual event in Belton called Canstruction. You're probably wondering what is Canstruction, well, it's a three day fun event where local teams from the community build enormous structures out of canned goods which then are used to fill the pantry of Helping Hands Ministry. This same event is held through out the country. The donations they earn from the event stays in the local community. The public is invited to view and vote on the structures using tickets that they get via their admission of a canned food item or a dollar donation, donate more and get more tickets. The event started Thursday evening, the public could come in and watch the teams build the structures. Friday and Saturday the finished structures are on display for public viewing and voting. Saturday night at a dinner the winner will get a plaque for the Community Favorite and other plaques are given out. How the voting works is for every dollar or canned good you donate you get a ticket. There is a water bottle in front of each structure and if you like the structure you put a ticket in the bottle. This year there were nine teams and it was hard to make a decision. I had five tickets so I took the easy way out and voted on five of the structures. The structures I vote on were Hungar Wars by CGI, Together We Can Fight Hungar by First Methodist Church of Belton, Happy Caniversary by the Foundation United Methodist Church, One Can Help a Hungry Home by New Tech High School and One Can Harvest Blessings by Belton Tigers BC Team. Last year they raised over 40,000 pounds of food. We had fun looking at the structures.

From Hearth to Heart: 3400 cans

Together We Can Fight Hungar: 5300 cans

Kylo Can-"Food Wars...The Hungar Awakes: 3800 cans

Happy Caniversary: 3720 cans

New Tech High School built One Can Help a Hungry Home: 6284 cans

One Can Harvest Blessings: 10,202 cans

"Anger" From Disney/Pixar's Inside Out:  2500 cans

New Tech High School built The Hungar Games: 3600 cans

Hungar Wars: 3500 cans

After using our kit to make bracelets Larry is pondering trying a new hobby, I really think he is thinking about a new hobby for me. He is thinking about beading. We ordered a book via Amazon titled: "Beadwork Techniques of the Native Americans" by Scott Sutton, it arrived yesterday. Larry read part of it and I read a little bit of it. It sounds like it would be fun. Larry found a beading place in Temple so after we went to the Canstruction we swung by. While there Larry asked the owner questions about beading and the different techniques and equipment. He also asked about classes. She told us they offer classes for beginners and classes for just working on different projects. She said we could take classes with a group of people or private and she had two instructors. She gave us a lot of information on beads, looms and techniques. By the time we left we were excited about learning beading. We had a busy morning.

In the afternoon I did housework and laundry and we watched a couple of episodes of Giz Wiz. It has been cloudy and chilly all day so when it was time for dinner I made a chili bake. It is very easy to make. I used a can of Campbell's Chunky Chili, 8oz. of shredded cheddar cheese and three flour tortillas. You layer tortilla, chili and cheese, you do this two more times then you bake it at 350 for 20 minutes or until the cheese is melted. After dinner I took Flo for a half hour walk around the neighborhood. By the time we got home Flo and I were tired. The rest of the evening we relaxed. We streamed a movie on Amazon called Oranges and Sunshine starring Emily Watson. It was a British movie based on a true story of a social worker in the 1980s, who holds the British government accountable for child migration schemes and reunites children who are now adults with their parents. It was a very good movie. Afterwards we watched four episodes of Transparent.