Cans Around the Oval Eases Hunger in Larimer County

By Kristen Scheirman

FORT COLLINS Colo. - Splotches of sunlight fell in patches across The Oval, which buzzed with activity as hoards of volunteers collected cans and loaded them into trucks during collection day at Colorado State University’s 23 annual Cans Around The Oval.

The event is sponsored by a CSU organization, Student Leadership, Involvement and Community Engagement, or SLiCE, and is a competition to see which community organization or student organization can collect the most cans and monetary donations. All of the money and goods go to the Food Bank for Larimer County which operates one food bank in Fort Collins and one in Loveland.

“We collect the food and money and give people receipts and judge the competition that way,” sophomore Pilar Delgado, Cans Around the Oval student coordinator, said. “The food bank supplies the trucks and [volunteers] load them.”

The recession has taken a toll on Colorado residents and the number of clients using the food bank has increased 55 percent in the last two years, making this year’s event more important than ever.

“I wanted to volunteer in case I need to use the food bank because my husband has been unemployed for almost a year-and-a-half,” said Kelly Cincere, whose company, Weston, paid their employees up to four hours for volunteering.

“And I wanted to volunteer because I have a friend who utilizes the food bank,” her coworker, Elizabeth MacQueston chimed in, lugging some cans into a box.

More people are hungry every day.

The number of Americans using food stamps has increased by 10 million in the past two years. The Food Bank of Larimer County distributes over seven million pounds of food per year. Across the nation, one in six people suffer from hunger every day.

The staff members who work at the food bank serve 30,000 clients per year and 50 percent of the people being served are children and senior citizens. Luckily for the food bank, community and donor support have increased along with the increased need for food.

Korrie Johnston, Communications Manager at the Food Bank of Larimer County, has seen what it is like for people to struggle with not having enough food to eat on a day-to-day basis and appreciates the effort that goes into Cans Around the Oval

“[I love] being at the food bank the day following the event and watching pallet after pallet of food be sorted and stored by all of our awesome volunteers [because you have] the opportunity to see the results first-hand and how the collection will impact our clients,” Johnston said.

In 2009, $27,000 and 90,000 pounds of food were collected during Cans Around the Oval. By the end of this year’s event, $37,000 and 61,000 pounds of food had been collected. The College of Business won the competition by collecting $17,000 and 15,000 pounds of food.

Brett Rundle is the only full time SLiCE staff member who helped organize the event along with four other student workers. They worked on Cans Around the Oval from the start of the school year up to collection day, recruiting collectors, handing out supplies, and organizing several related events, such as Canstruction, a competition to build the best buildings out of cans.

“We had a lot of people involved in fundraising and collecting and we did an awesome job,” Rundle said. “But what we are doing is just a small slice of what the food bank does to provide food to those in need. So you have to feel great about the effort but understand there’s obviously more to do to alleviate and end hunger in Fort Collins.”