Over 500 Campbell's soup cans form Canada 150 tribute at city hall food drive (5 photos)

An impressive display made up of 500 cans of Campbell’s soup wrote out the number ‘150’ in the lobby of city hall on Thursday.

City Hall held their second annual Canned Food Drive and different city departments competed to raise the most food items for the Sault Ste. Marie Soup Kitchen Community Centre.

For the second year in a row the winner — who got to hold the coveted 'Golden Can Award' — was Clerks Department however, Mayor Christian Provenzano believes it should have been city council that won the award in what might be described as a food drive scandal.

Councilor Steve Butland created some controversy. He secured a 576 can donation from Campbell's Soup for the wrong team. The can donation was used by Public Works and Engineering to create a 504 can display. Jeff Klassen/SooToday

It’s all Councillor Steve Butland’s fault.

Using his experience and connections, Butland called up the vice president of Campbell’s Soup asking if for a 500 can donation on behalf of Public Works and Engineering.

Campbell’s told him he was in luck because it was the end of their fiscal year and they had money left and the company delivered 24x24 cases — that’s 576 cans — of what Butland was told was ‘their top four’ soups – Tomato, Chicken Noodle, Cream of Mushroom, and Vegetable.

Differently skilled Public Works employees teamed up to create a special wooden display spelled out ‘150’ in soup cans.

Their engineers drew up plans in AutoCad and their carpenters built the stand for the display.

And it was nothing but positivity all around, except Butland’s own department — the Council CANadians — believe the councillor should have helped his own team instead.

If he had, they would have won the tournament and the Golden Can could have perhaps sat in the mayor’s office, or maybe council chambers, for the next year.

The mayor commented  on the fiasco when people started clapping for Butland at the awards ceremony.

“The only people that should be clapping for Councillor Butland are Public Works,” said the mayor, but it was all tongue in cheek fun for a good cause.

“Third Steve, third — we could have been first,” said the mayor.

When speaking about the subject Butland smiled and asked not to talk about it.

“It’s not about me,” he said.

The theme this year was Canada 150 and different departments had aptly-named team names like the John ‘Eh’ MacDonalds, HR Pac-Can, the Fire Services CANnons, etc.

The scoring of the competition was based on a ratio of cans per participant on a team.

For example, the Clerks’ Department — who went by the name ‘MC Canner’ — raised 980 cans with 11 people which put them at 87 cans per person.

The second-place team, the CAO’s Office and Local Immigration Partnership — ‘The Souper Douper Can Cans’ — had 5 people raising 339 products for a ratio of 58 cans per person.

Overall the entire city raised 3800 cans worth of food.

But it wasn’t just soup that was donated — there was a variety of items including pasta, personal hygiene items, cereal, Mr. Noodles, and bottled water.

To compare food items for the competition, the dollar value of donated items was converted to cans at $1 to 1 can value.

The reason the city holds the event is held in the summer is because, being far away from Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Soup Kitchen’s shelves are at their barest right now.

The amount raised is about enough to run the soup kitchen for two weeks — a not insignificant amount for a single food drive to raise said Norma Lizotte, volunteer coordinator and guest service navigator for the soup kitchen, when looking at the food piled up in the lobby of city hall.

“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time,” said Lizotte.