Through trucks, a drone, a Jedi, and a house, Pella Corporation engineers recently supported regional food pantries in honor of National Engineers Week.

They collected thousands of items for food pantries as part of their CAN-struction build event last month. Senior group vice president Denny Van Zanten says the event showed off the engineers’ skill and allowed them compete. Five teams within Pella headquarters had 45 minutes to complete their build with items they collected on their own and the Pella Hy-Vee and other local grocery stories. The Pella Food Shelf and Helping Hands in Knoxville benefitted from the effort.

Two teams in Pella constructed replicas of the historic Pella Rolscreen truck, while the remaining teams built a drone, a house and a mosaic of Yoda, the Star Wars character. The Carroll team designed the waving Pella and Hy-Vee flags, while the team in Murray constructed a windmill.

By the Numbers:

Pella, IA items donated: 3,212
Carroll, IA items donated: 1,189
Murray, KY items donated: 2,084
Total Number of teams: 7
Number of participating engineers: 42 (6 per team)
Winning build: Yoda