On Sunday, October 19th, a team of six Hunzinger employees met at the rotunda of the Bayshore Town Center to take part in “Canstruction”. The Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, in partnership with the Bayshore Town Center and its philanthropic arm Olshan Outreach, brought Canstruction to the Milwaukee area for the first time in the program’s twenty-two year history. Canstruction is a unique charitable effort which hosts competitions and exhibitions showcasing colossal artistic structures made entirely out of full cans of food. Following a public exhibition of the sculptures, the food is donated to a local hunger relief organization, in this case the Jewish Community Pantry.
The Hunzinger Team, led by Canstruction Project Designer, Andy Seiter, collected funds to purchase the over 1,500 cans of food necessary to build Andy’s vision to recreate the Miller Park Famous Racing Sausages bounding to the finish line where Hank, the Brewer’s mascot, was obediently waiting for them. His plan called for constructing all 5 sausages, the Brat, the Italian, the Polish, the Hotdog and Chorizo and of course Hank the dog. Andy poured over spreadsheets, meticulously planning every layer of cans, color coding labels, and specifying food type to make sure that the cans of food we donated were popular and needed items at the pantry. Numerous planning meetings were held with team members and a full size mockup was built in our shop to insure that there would be no assembly issues early Sunday morning. To raise the funds, Hunzinger held a friendly competition between a few of our current projects including CUNA Mutual in Madison, Mayfair Mall, Progressive Community HealthCare Lisbon Avenue Clinic and Johnson Controls Project Unity. Bragging rights went to the CUNA Mutual project where $540 was raised. The other projects brought in around $400 each and office personnel made donations as well to bring our total to almost $2,000 company wide.
The other participating firms included Kahler Slater, Plunkett Raysich Architects (PRA), Eppstein Uhen Architects (EUA), and Zimmerman (ZAS) with Gilbane. The teams painstakingly assembled their designs all under the theme of “Milwaukee” with the Domes and the Gas Company Building being represented. One firm built a monument to iconic Milwaukee food including a custard cone, a can of beer, and cheese wedges. Believe it or not, PRA also built the racing sausages! The sculptures are available for viewing throughout the week, with a juried awards ceremony and reception to be held on October 21st from 5:30-7:00 pm.
“This is a beautiful convergence of so many things we care deeply about at the JCC,” said JCC executive director Mark Shapiro, “Including public access to arts and culture, a commitment to community partnership, and an unwavering passion for feeding those in need. We’re blessed to have this many talented firms and professionals joining us for this exciting event.”
If you are interested in viewing or voting for the construction projects, head over to Bayshore today!
