By Ana Contreras /Staff Writer, Dora Yrigoyen / Managing Editor
By Ana Contreras /Staff Writer, Dora Yrigoyen / Managing Editor
Creativity is all about inventing, experimenting and having fun.
Friendly competition for a good cause was the goal of the Multi-Cultural Advisory Council when they announced an iCans competition would be taking place Tuesday, Oct. 11 at Riverside City College.
On-campus clubs had the opportunity to create their own amazing characters or structures using cans, while still donating to feed the homeless and that is exactly what they did.
Hadia Bendelhoum, the Multi-Cultural Advisory Council Director, described the competition as a fun twist on a food drive.
“We wanted the clubs to get more involved with each other and give back to the community because we have a lot of homeless students on campus,” Bendelhoum said.
“Not many people participate in food drives so we thought if we put a fun twist on it more people would participate.”
The clubs with the nicest designs were given an award at the end of the competition and the cans used were donated to the Islamic Healing and Wellness Center in San Bernardino.
With music playing, students smiling and having a good time, the competition kicked off to a good start and the clubs began assembling their sculptures for the competition.
Club members let their imaginations run wild with sculptures ranging from a mermaid to a double helix.
However, this competition was more than just a potential prize to them.
The Muslim Student Association sponsors some homeless food drives within their own club and upon hearing of the iCans competition they decided to participate.
“As Muslims, we’re supposed to give back to the community. It helps build unity amongst the clubs if we try and do homeless feedings together,” said Mohammed Kako, Muslim Student Association president.
“The school said they were doing a homeless feeding with other clubs and since it was a bunch of clubs feeding the homeless, which is a beautiful thing, we decided to join in on it,” she said.
While all of the clubs were participating to support the cause, some were encouraged to participate because of the thrill of competition.
“It’s a good cause to donate food to the food bank especially with the holidays coming around and we also like to win and I’m a sucker for competition,” said Biology club president, Cassie Bennett.
Although every club came up with extremely unique designs, the awards for best designs went to the Muslim Student Association with their “City of Peace” sculpture and the Biological Sciences club with their fitting “Double Helix” design.
“We feel great; we made it full of meaning, something that everyone could relate to,” said Hina Saiyed, a representative of the Muslim Student Association.
Though the turnout might have been a little less than the organizers hoped for, Hadia Bendelhoum says she would like to see events like iCans each semester.
In the end, the iCans competition proved to be a great example of how to contribute to a good cause, with the canned food donated to an organization to help others in need.