CANstruction Lethbridge returned to Centre Village Mall to support local food banks

By Lethbridge Herald on March 7, 2026.

Herald Photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Members of the Lethbridge Polytechnic team build an homage to the Leaning Tower of Pisa called ÒLeaning Towards ChangeÓ out of cans, as part of CANstruction Lethbridge Thursday at the Centre Village Mall.

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Lethbridge Herald

CANstruction Lethbridge has returned for their 12th year to help restock the shelves of local food banks with much needed canned food, while displaying the creativity, engineering, and community spirit showcased in the structures on display at the Centre Village Mall. 

CANstruction organizing board chair Darryl Schalk said the event is part of an international competition, that has been taking place in Lethbridge for the last 12 years.

“CANstruction is an organization that started a number of years ago as a creative way to raise food and funding for local food banks,” said Schalk. “We’ve got structures that are 10 plus feet tall. It’s a unique way for these creative minds to come up with their designs.” 

He said the CANstructures will be on display at the Centre Village Mall until April 2, where eight teams are competing in various awards categories, such as structural ingenuity, best original design, most cans, and People’s Choice and members of the community are encouraged to vote for them until March 25.

Winning structures will also be submitted to the international CANstruction competition, where they compete alongside entries from across North America.

“After that, on April 2 the CANstructures get torn down and all proceeds go to the Interfaith Food Bank, Lethbridge Food Bank, University of Lethbridge Students’ Union Food Bank and the Lethbridge Polytechnic Food Bank,” said Schalk. 

He said this year they are hoping to raise 12,000 cans of food for the local food banks, as they gathered just over 11,000 cans last year. 

“We had a lot of teams bring new sponsorship, so some of the teams were able to raise fund over and above what they needed for buying cans and all those funds then got donated to the food banks,” said Schalk. 

Marketing and communications with the Interfaith Food Bank, Taylor Doyle said CANstruction is beneficial for the food bank for many reasons. 

“It’s always nice to have an event to engage the community and remind the community of food insecurity and the need we have in Lethbridge,” said Doyle. 

She said that since they get a lot of support from the community around Christmas and Thanksgiving time, CANstruction proceeds come to them at a time of the year when they see less donations. 

“CANstruction is at the perfect time of the year for us to be able to restock our shelves as we are always looking for non-perishable donations to fill our hampers, so these will keep our shelves stocked for some time,” said Doyle. 

For more information about CANstruction Lethbridge 2026, visit: http://www.canstructionleth.ca.