Homecoming contest benefits Harvest Hope
Greene Street was taken over by replicas of Williams-Brice Stadium, Maxcy Monument, a giant bow tie and a huge football, to name just a few, as sororities, fraternities and other student organizations competed in Canned Creations Wednesday afternoon.
All of the statues were made entirely of cans and designed by the students who built them in the annual Homecoming competition. The structures were supposed to adhere to the Homecoming theme of “Cocky for a Reason.” Thousands of cans were used to build these cocky creations and all of them were donated to Harvest Hope Food Bank at the end of the competition.
By the end of the day, more than 13,400 cans were on their way to Harvest Hope.
“The 13,400 is a rough estimate; that’s the minimum we’ll have because we require each member of each organization to donate at least two cans,” said Allison Toney, coordinator for student organizations.
Toney said that the event gave more than 10,000 pounds of food to Harvest Hope last year and she expects this year’s total to have “well exceeded” that of last year’s.
“We had two trucks filled with cans going to Harvest Hope, so it’s looking good,” she said.
Beta Theta Pi fraternity and Delta Delta Delta sorority, who took first place in Spurs and Struts and the banner competition, hoped to score a trifecta with their football statue.
“We’ve all put in a lot help and everyone’s really come together,” said first-year business student Tyler Frey, Beta Theta Pi’s homecoming representative. “We’re just hoping to do as well as we’ve done so far, both with Spurs and Struts and banner. We’re just really hoping to pull out a third.”
Each member of the organizations who participated in Canned Creations was required to donate at least two cans or the monetary equivalent. Beta Theta Pi and Delta Delta Delta collected enough money between them to buy 900 cans for the competition.
“We got a lot of strange looks walking out of Sam’s Club with 74 boxes of green beans,” Frey said.
On the other side of the street was a giant yellow, blue and purple bow tie created with cans donated by Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Chi Omega sorority.
The two groups created their structure out of 823 cans, which they collected at chapter meetings over one month.
“We also just went out and bought mass amounts so we’d have enough,” said Linda Keen, third-year sport and entertainment management student and the campus activities chairwoman for Chi Omega.
Other pairs constructed models of easily recognized USC landmarks. The most popular one was of Williams-Brice Stadium; the teams of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and Alpha Delta Pi sorority and Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and Alpha Gamma Delta sorority were two of many who created structures modeled after the stadium. Sigma Chi fraternity and Phi Mu sorority stacked cans in the image of the Horseshoe’s Maxcy Monument while Delta Tau Delta fraternity and Delta Zeta sorority were one of the top can contributors, using 1,022 cans to create a Williams-Brice replica including a field emblazoned with the number 21 for injured running back Marcus Lattimore.
The first, second and third prize winners will be announced tonight at Cockfest, which starts at 7 p.m. on Greene Street.