Students Build Awareness About Hunger
Design Event in Hartford Brings Together Kids from Across the State
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Students are building with cans. Later, they will feed people in need.
This week's been a time to unload and unwrap for an unusual event in Hartford.
CANstruction is a 10-year partnership between the state's architecture community and six Connecticut schools.
Architect Dan Thornton has been working with students from the Gideon Wells School in Glastonbury since September.
"We try to teach them, not only a little a about architecture and design, but also about responsibility in the community," Thornton said.
Their charge is to design and build a structure using donated cans of food of all sizes and colors. The Glastonbury team's creation depicts the now-infamous Angry Birds fighting to knock down hunger.
Rachit Kumbalaparambil is a team supervisor and holds the detailed plans in his 11 year-old hands.
"It's basically what we have to build, so I have to look over and see if anything is going wrong,",the sixth grader said.
The teams are from Windsor, West Hartford, Stamford, Clinton and Glastonbury. Among them, they have 14,000 cans. When all the structures are dismantled next week, the cans will be donated to the Connecticut Food Bank and Foodshare.
Cori Richardson, a fifth grader at Windsor's Poquonoick School, is excited abut making a difference.
"I know that people are getting helped and they're not being poor or missing food and I like to hear that," Richardson said.
The event brings local students together for a common cause. Although some were awarded for their efforts, the focus is on building awareness of the hunger problem in our state.
The structures will on display on the third floor of the Connecticut Convention Center through Monday, May 21. At that point, they'll be dismantled and the cans will be distributed to the two food banks.
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