GALLIPOLIS — The recent holiday season provided a great opportunity for a group of Gallia County young people to reach out to the community.

Generation Gallia Young Professionals Network, which is sponsored by the Gallia County Chamber of Commerce, completed a successful campaign to collect canned food items for food pantries and needy people in the area. Jodie L. McCalla, one of the organizing members of Generation Gallia, said the CANstruction effort exceeded the group’s expectations.

“After all was said and done, we donated 3,200 canned food items to three food pantries,” said McCalla, who is an employee of Ohio Valley Bank. Vinton Baptist Church, Living Water Church, Lower Land Food Pantry and the Angel Tree program benefited from the effort.

McCalla explained how CANstruction worked.

“It was a competition where we asked different companies and organizations to help raise funds or donate canned foods,” she said. “Ohio Valley Bank and Holzer Clinic participated and built structures. The Gallia Academy (High School) Key Club also participated, but they just donated the canned food items they raised at school.”

Ohio Valley Bank utilized 1,700 cans of food to build a Christmas tree, while Holzer Clinic used 1,300 cans to build a structure that was based on The Giving Tree, a children’s book written by Shel Silverstein.

“After the structures were built, we had online voting and ballots in the newspaper,” McCalla said. “Holzer Clinic won ‘People’s Choice’ and ‘Best Use of Labels.’”

The campaign also attracted many local residents to the Generation Gallia Web site, where they could vote for their favorite canned creation.

“Online we received over 400 votes, so we got a lot of participation in the community,” McCalla noted. “That was good. I think for the first year it wasn’t too bad. This year we’d like to get more organizations to actually build the structures themselves, give it a little more variety and see what people can do.

“It’s really a good way to bring people into your business, to show them what you’ve got to offer as well as to display the canned structure.”

McCalla said Generation Gallia has committed to conducting monthly events for its current members and anyone interested in joining the group. She said the goal is to provide some type of workshop or other informative event one month followed by a less formal social activity the next month.

“We’re always looking for new members and anyone who is dedicated to making the community a better place to live, or anyone who is looking to meet new people or network,” McCalla said.

McCalla said the group does not charge for membership, but does charge $5 for its monthly events. She said the target age group for Generation Gallia is the 21-40 range, but anyone is welcome.

“We’re trying to really get the younger community involved, because a lot of the more experienced people in our community are the ones who work at a lot of events,” she said. “We’re just trying to get more people involved.”

For information about Generation Gallia, visit its Web site, generationgallia.org. McCalla can be contacted via e-mail at jodie.mccalla@gmail.com. Sabrina Tennant from the Gallia County Chamber of Commerce can also provide information about the group. Call 446-0596, or e-mail stennant@galliacounty.org.