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For the past several years, a few of my friends in the architectural community and I have joined forces to expose area high schools students to the field of architecture, as part of the Exploring Program. This year, nearly 40 area students expressed an interest in the profession and spent time throughout the year designing a “project” that tests their creativity and benefits our community. For the first time, we engaged area businesses in the process and came up with the idea of designing a project using non-perishable food as the building material and donating the projects to St. Joseph’s Food Program. Miron, the McMahon Group and Gries Architectural Group are working with the students to develop their projects and teach them about architectural careers. The response from the students, the volunteers and area businesses has been amazing. Festival Foods offered to donate the food and the American Institute of Architects will attend to judge the projects and award prizes to the winning student team.

March 9 was the beginning of the build at Miron’s corporate office in Neenah. Judging, as well as the presentation of the food donation, will take place on March 16th from 4 to 6 p.m. Stop by to see the projects and meet the students and volunteers who have worked so hard to make this event happen.

The “recipe” for the projects:

400 soup cans
35 tuna cans
664 cans of Delmonte crushed pineapple
6 cans of Campbell's tomato soup
4 cans of black olives
310 cans of baked beans
181 cans of sauerkraut
48 bottles of water
3 small bags of goldfish crackers
118 cans of Progresso soup
16 Coco Puffs cereal boxes
320 cans of Delmonte corn
6 cans of Campbell's soup
10 boxes of spaghetti
200 water bottles
1 bag of Swedish Fish crackers
224 cans of Green Giant Lesueur Peas
118 boxes of Shop Value Mac and Cheese
7 cans of Bountiful Harvest whole corn
300 boxes of Hamburger Helper classic potatoes stroganoff
344 cans of Hunts tomato sauce
2 cans of Mario pitted black olives
6 cans of Bushes Best White Hominy