CANTON — Northern New York Community Foundation’s LEAD Council has announced that Canton Central School’s Banford Elementary is the winner of the “Best Design Award” in its second “Canstruction for Northern New York” contest to help reduce food insecurity across the North Country.

Eight teams from across the tri-county region combined to collect more than 5,200 canned goods and other nonperishable food items or hygiene products that will help restock school-based backpack programs and community food pantries in Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties. Additionally, the winning teams will share $1,500 in grant awards to present to two different school-based backpack programs that participants selected.

Canton Central’s Banford Elementary School was the winner of the “Best Design Award” for its “canstruction” of “We CAN build our ABCs.”

Banford Elementary teacher Cara Coffin said she and her team of young students “felt like this project was a win-win scenario as it would benefit our school and community with all the food items donated going to our BearPack program” while also giving students a “cool experience with a STEAM project.”

“This was definitely a Canton school team effort that challenged our creativity and brought so much good to our students and families,” Coffin said. “Winning $500 for our BearPack program makes the effort even more worth it.”

Ms. Coffin explained that the team’s alphabet design was a “natural idea for us because it is a huge part of our academic curriculum.”

“Watching first graders strategize together and come up with cool ways to show the letters was the best part. A major bonus with the alphabet design is that it gave our 71 students 26 small sculptures to build; this meant 26 small groups and a high level of student engagement,” Ms. Coffin said. “The students were shocked that their design won, especially when competing against teams with much older students.”

Each of the eight participating teams in the competition will donate all items used to build their sculptures to a local food pantry or backpack program. Each award winner will receive a $500 grant for participants to distribute to a nonprofit of their choice.

Canton’s Banford Elementary students designated the district’s “BearPack” program, which supports students and families on the weekends, to receive the hundreds of food items they collected as well as the $500 grant for the “Best Design Award.”

Other St. Lawrence County school district teams participating in this year’s competition were Clarkson University American Society of Civil Engineers with “ASCE City;” and Harrisville Central School with “Go Pirates.”

“Canstruction for Northern New York” encouraged tri-county students to team up and build a fun, themed structure made of donated canned food and other nonperishable food items or hygiene products to support a local food pantry or backpack program of their choice and help reduce food insecurity across the region, a press release from the LEAD Council said.

Participating students had a chance to support essential needs for tri-county residents while learning values of community philanthropy and building school spirit around a project that made a meaningful difference in the lives of others, said the organization.

The project helped raise awareness about hunger and food insecurity in local communities and empowered students to collaborate and inspire their school and community, the council said.