Can-struction contest benefits food pantry - Newnan Times-Herald

Can-struction contest benefits food pantry - Newnan Times-Herald

The Newnan Times-Herald

The 33rd annual Coweta Can-A-Thon is in full swing at Coweta County Schools and businesses.

Tuesday, it’s coming to downtown Newnan for something entirely new – a can sculpture contest.

“Can-Struction” will be 4-7 p.m. around downtown. It’s put on by the Newnan High School Ambassadors organization.

Students will take cans – at least 100 of them – and get creative building something on 8-by-6-foot areas in front of local businesses. The canstructions will be judged, and then dismantled. The canned goods will be taken to the Coweta Community Food Pantry.

“I think that is going to be a really cool thing,” said Ellie Sonnier, Can-A-Thon chairwoman for the Junior League, which puts on the annual charity event.

Food Pantry Executive Director Derenda Rowe is looking forward to the influx of items before the culmination of the Can-A-Thon on Nov. 29. The weeks leading up to arrival of thousands of food items are always the leanest at the food pantry.

“If anybody wants to drop off anything that could be used for Thanksgiving, that would be so awesome,” Rowe said, “because this is the time that we struggle to have what we need. And we struggle especially to have Thanksgiving food.”

Sometimes, people or businesses will show up with large donations, but she never knows if they are coming.

Great items to donate between now and Thanksgiving include stuffing, green beans and corn, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes. The pantry now has a large refrigerator and freezer, so frozen items, including cakes and pies, as well as meats can be donated.

Rowe is also director of One Roof Outreach, and One Roof needs donations of warm coats for people, as well as personal-hygiene items.

“The basic necessities are things that we try to make sure we have access to for our people,” she said. “It would be awesome for people to start thinking about doing a coat drive.”

The finale of the Can-A-Thon is the public drop-off on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

Volunteers from the Newnan Junior Service League will be manning two public drop-off points from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Donors don’t even have to get out of their cars.

There’s a new Thomas Crossroads area drop-off this year. The drop-off will be in front of Morgan Jewelers, on the corner near the Newnan East Goodwill center. It’s an easy, drive-up location, Sonnier said.

Though it’s a “can” event, all forms of non-perishable food are needed and welcomed. So are boxes and bags, too. And money. Monetary donations help the food pantry throughout the year, and are used to buy specific items that are needed. Checks may be made out to the Newnan Junior Service League.

Things have improved since the Great Recession, but Rowe said advocates for the poor are worried about next year, with the crackdown on childless adults receiving food stamps.

Starting Jan. 1, able-bodied adults without children will only be able to receive food stamps for three months. Rowe expects to see a greater need at the food pantry once those regulations go into effect.

She’s also started seeing, quite recently, people showing up who haven’t needed help from the pantry since the recession.

“We don’t really have a reason for it,” she said, but she’s seeing several a week.

“We’re not necessarily seeing a larger number of people, just seeing some people we haven’t seen in a long time, and it’s just odd,” Rowe said. “We’re a bit puzzled as to what might be going on.”

For more information about the food pantry, call 770-683-7705 or visit the Coweta Community Food Pantry page on Facebook. The pantry is located at 253 Temple Ave., Newnan, in the Westside Plaza shopping center.