Bobalu Berry Farms in Oxnard, Calif., recently continued a holiday season tradition of giving back through friendly competition benefitting a local nonprofit.
Bobalu took part in the 12th annual Can-tree event where businesses and organizations build holiday trees from canned food, according to a news release. Over 100 participants built more than 300 trees in this year’s event, which is hosted by Food Share of Ventura County (Calif.), a member of Feeding America.
Teams sought to build the most creative holiday trees to win awards, such as the People Choice Award. Each tree is built with about 600 cans, which are later used by Food Share to provide meals for those in need within the community, the release said.
Bobalu says its team built a “strawberry field” in the plaza of downtown Ventura; two rows of cans were covered by a blanket of real strawberry plants that fed into a giant strawberry tree built entirely by cans. The company credits Maria Lopez as the driving force behind the idea.
This was Bobalu’s fifth year participating in the event. While winning an award is a goal for the staff, the fun of working together each year and being part of a greater effort to support the community is their focus, the release said.
“We love being part of this community every day, but [we] also look forward to this event and the holiday spirit we all get when we participate as a group to support this cause,” Lopez said in the release.
Award winners are to be announced on the Food Share website.
