Canstruction Waterloo Region returns to Conestoga Mall during March Break, March 9 to 17. The week-long event—hosted by The Food Bank of Waterloo Region and presented by Cohen Highley Lawyers— increases awareness about food insecurity in our community, raises food and funds in support of The Food Bank, and brings local businesses and community groups together to use their creativity to help build a future without hunger. 

This year, 14 teams will put their talent and skills to the test, building awe-inspiring structures using more than 24,000 unopened food cans that get donated to The Food Bank. As part of the event, teams design their build, source and buy the food needed, and construct their structure on build day, March 8. 

Between March 9 and 17, the public is encouraged to visit the mall, view the structures, and donate to The Food Bank to vote for their favourite build. The structure with the most votes wins the People’s Choice Award. Structures are also judged by a judging panel in set categories. Winners are announced March 9, except for the People’s Choice Award which is announced March 18. 

One of the 14 teams participating in Canstruction this year is GHD, a global, multidisciplinary professional services network providing clients with integrated solutions across digital, engineering, environmental, design and construction. All members of the team are a part of GHD’s Young Professional committee, one of the company’s employee resource groups. 

GHD Canstruction team members are top, left, Dylan Smith, Leesha Piel, Peter Zytner, Mantake Singh, and Madelyn Athanasiou. Bottom, left, Patrick Chen, Gabrielle Starodub, and Brooke Macaulay.

“Our young professionals have seen the structures in Conestoga Mall and thought it would be a great way to challenge ourselves while giving back to the community in a fun and collaborative way,” explains Brooke Macaulay, a member of the Canstruction team and civil engineer in training at GHD. “Canstruction engages a wide range of people at our office, and it felt like the perfect event to strengthen our community, both in our office and in Waterloo region.” 

First, they had to design their build. After holding a brainstorming session and narrowing down their ideas, the team voted on their design, naming it GHD Sinks Hunger. 

“For the design, our captains took on the role of project managers to identify important milestones and their associated tasks,” Brooke says. “Because of the field we’re in, we had a good understanding of how to divide a project into manageable parts and set realistic internal deadlines. Once the schedule and tasks were set, we met weekly with our design team to problem-solve and ensure everything was on track.” 

Once they had their design figured out, they held a variety of creative events to raise funds to buy the food needed to build their structure. 

“We host an annual two week-long fundraising event for The Food Bank at Thanksgiving, and once that wrapped up, we just kept the ball rolling! Some of our notable fundraising events have been a soup and bread lunch and a holiday bake sale,” Brooke explains. “GHD’s Ontario region was also incredibly generous to provide additional funding so that we could create the structure we wanted without having to scale it down! Due to everyone’s generosity, we’ve reached our goal of $3,500!” 

With the money they raised, GHD was able to buy the food items needed to construct their design. They’ll be using cans and packages of chickpeas, red kidney beans, tomatoes, chili, tuna, honey, water, pasta, and instant coffee to build their structure. In total, they’ll be using 1,712 cans.

Gabrielle Starodub is pictured here with some of the food they’ll be using to build their structure.

“We can’t wait to see our structure fully built!” Brooke adds. “There is a lot of anticipation in our office to see the final design and we can’t wait to share it with everyone. We’ve really enjoyed collaborating with other young professionals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds at GHD, and we love that we get to give back to our community.” 

To see all the structures, including GHD’s, be sure to drop by Conestoga Mall between March 9 and 17 and donate to The Food Bank to vote for your favourite build to help decide the People’s Choice Award.