Businesses Build Food Structures for United Way

A few area organizations on Friday showed that a good food drive can be built from the ground up.

CT Consultants, Marous Brothers Construction and the Lake County Council on Aging helped United Way of Lake County kick off its annual Feed Lake County drive at Great Lakes Mall with thousands of donations that they used to create humongous replicas of some of their favorite foods.

Twenty Marous employees used 1,040 cans and bottles to make a giant Jif Peanut Butter bottle to accompany its four-layered peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The individually donated Jif bottles had printed labels with the names of donating employees on them.

"We did if last year, and this part of our outreach," Marous marketing coordinator Nikki Formica-Babb said. "We don't normally build peanut butter and jelly, but it's so much fun."

The council on aging used 160 boxes and 65 bags to create a piece of pumpkin pie, while CT Consultants used green, red and can donations to create the spitting image of sushi with soy sauce and wasabi.

Feed Lake County is a month-long food drive in which the organization encourages businesses and individuals to run their own drives to benefit United Way, spokesman Nick Carrabine said. Last March, United Way . The money is used throughout the year to purchase more food for distributions around holidays. Twelve food pantries in Mentor were among the beneficiaries in 2012.

A committee will vote on the structures and United Way will announce the winners at its raffle drawing on March 15 at the mall. The organization has also announced public drop-off times outside of the mall near Tony Sacco's on the next three Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., as well as from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on March 19, 22, 26 and 28.

Individuals and companies interested in donating should contact Rich Thiedemann at 440-639-1153 or Rthiedemann@uwlc.org.