2025 Presenting Sponsor Price Chopper/Market 32
Lights, CANmera, Action!
Ellie Wilson, MS, RDN, CDN
The 2025 Capital District CANstruction competition is being held this year in Crossgates Mall on Monday, May 6th through Tuesday, May 20th, and will benefit The Food Pantries of the Capital District. The Lights, CANmera, Action theme is sure to inspire some stunning can sculpture design concepts you won’t want to miss!
CANstruction® (Canstruction.org), launched in 1992 by the late Cheri Melillo from the Society for Design Administration (SDA), is a unique and creative annual event that unites architects, students, design, engineering, and the construction industry in a themed display and international contest. Over the years, these programs have engaged communities with familiar images via can sculpture and then deliver a support benefit to local food and nutrition security programs by donating their building materials – in every shape and size, the humble, adaptable, portable, and storable can.
You CAN participate! The two-week long exhibit also has a coveted People’s Choice Award – bring your family, friends, co-workers and neighbors to Crossgates and be sure everyone has a canned food item. As you tour the exhibits, “vote” for your favorite by placing a can in the shopping cart by that display. The most canned votes wins! At the end of the event, every can is donated to The Food Pantries for the Capital District to help feed families in the Capital Region. Since its inception in 2011, Capital Region CANstruction and Market 32/Price Chopper have donated over 907,863 lbs of food to The Food Pantries for the Capital District. In 2024, that included almost 42,000 cans!
CANstruction competitions are held in cities across the United States and internationally.
All competitions are governed by a standardized set of rules and regulations. Each city’s entries are judged for a number of categories by a local panel and winning designs compete, via photography, at the AIA Convention each year. Capital Region CANstruction is held each spring, when our local food pantries have the greatest need. The food and funds from our annual event help bridge the need between the abundant holiday season and the slower summer months. Thousands of hungry people are fed wherever a CANstruction competition is held.
As a registered dietitian-nutritionist, I see the great benefits canned foods bring to the table, and I share insights to ensure everyone else does too. The farming, harvest, and packing of canned food lock in goodness within hours of harvest. Cans deliver prepared, nourishing foods with a long shelf life to communities that may not be able to grow or offer access to these items in a tasty, safe, and economical way. Cut produce, seafood, and more culturally diverse items in cans help stretch budgets and are a recipe solution to help busy families create healthier meals or solve preparation issues for those who cannot easily cut and prepare fresh produce.
What is the impact? The humble can is an unsung nutrition and hunger hero. Studies show that children who eat canned produce eat 22% more vegetables and 14% more fruit than those who don’t. The data is almost the same for adults – 19% more fruit and 17% more vegetables. Canned foods bring key nutrients to the plate ₁, with no limits from geography or seasonality.
I will give a shout out to the volunteers that put this all together. The fearless leader, Jill Shorter, of Ryan Biggs Clark Davis Engineering and Surveying and the Market 32/Price Chopper Community Relations team, who coordinates with each competitor to ensure their design-specific “building material” order gets to the meticulous Market 32/Price Chopper Warehouse teammates that bring each order together. They are critical to the success of each year’s event. We appreciate their commitment, talent and energy!
₁. "Canned Vegetable and Fruit Consumption Is Associated with Changes in Nutrient Intake and Higher Diet Quality in Children and Adults: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001-2010": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212267215015877
