March 14, 2016 at 3:38 p.m.
CANtastic nets nearly 4,000 food items
CANtastic nets nearly 4,000 food items
By Kayla Thomason-
Six teams built vehicles out of non-perishable goods, to fit this year's theme of Drive Out Hunger. The teams collectively used nearly 3,000 non-perishable food items, with another 1,000 items donated separately for voting. All the goods will be donated to the Rhinelander Area Food Pantry.
Team Pelican, consisting of five second-grade students, two volunteers and teacher Amy Rogers, built a school bus using 219 cans. The group won the "People's Choice" award.
The five students were Sadie Jones, Hunter Gurskey, Valerie Sanders, Trinity Gauthier and Robert Guolle.
The team members said they enjoyed the competition.
"It involves the community and we're helping this great cause," Rogers said.
Gauthier said she liked putting the cans in a line and taping them together.
The Rhinelander High School Building Trades team won the "Most Cans Used" award, building their structure with 718 items.
"We had a surprise at the end where we didn't know we had this extra $100 coming in so in the middle of the build we were able to get an extra, I think, 202 cans to fill in there," student Ryan Kovac said. This was his first year participating in CANtastic.
The group wouldn't have won the award had it not received that surprise donation, as the second-place team used a little over 600 cans.
"I think it's fantastic, it's going to help a lot of people out in Rhinelander and just us trades group being able to donate 718 cans makes us all feel really good about what we're doing," Kovac said.
The RHS Building Trades team built a plow truck.
"We all came together at a meeting one day and we thought of our theme to drive out hunger and what better way to drive out hunger than with a big plow truck," Kovac said.
Dana DeMet, Rhinelander branch manager for Nicolet National Bank, and his team of eight to 10 members, called themselves the "Nicolet Silver Dollars." They won "Judge's Choice" award with their ferry boat.
"We were People's Choice winner last year so to be Judge's Choice winner this year was pretty exciting as well," DeMet said.
The group did some research, drawing inspiration from around the world.
"We did some research online and we found an international competition that goes on in different metropolitan areas around the world and we found some designs that we really liked from that," DeMet said. "So it was really kind of a combination of a couple different designs that we liked."
DeMet said he thought CANtastic was a cool way to get collect donations for the food pantry.
Guy Hansen, Rhinelander Area Food Pantry executive director, was pleased with the teams' creations.
"I thought the structures were as good as any year," he said. "They looked very good, the judges had a hard time deciding."
There was one point separating the first- and second-place teams in Judge's Choice category.
"It was a fun event, I think people had a good time," he said.
Hansen would like to the Rouman Cinema for allowing the event to be held in the facility.
He also said he hopes more groups will participate in next year's CANtastic event.
Kayla Breese may be reached at kayla@ rivernewsonline.com.
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