Teams of students from several schools are planning artwork sculptures made from canned goods for the first Bean Cook-off — Gaining Support and Awareness for Youth Prevention event next month.

“We came up with the idea of doing the bean cook off to showcase artwork sculptures that teams of kids ages 14 to 18 will be creating with some of the canned goods we’ll be getting in October,” said Mollie Stevens, prevention and development manager at the Family Guidance Center.

The month of October is slated for In Ca-hoots where the schools will be raising canned goods for area food banks sponsored by the Lawrence County Stand, an anti-tobacco youth movement.

“The time of year there’s always a need for canned goods and young people wanted to have a canned food drive,” she said. “So, In Ca-hoots was established to challenge the county schools to raise canned goods and Stand teens are going to provide whatever classroom contributes the most canned goods with a pizza party.

Seven teams from several schools are planning their sculptures now for the big event on Nov. 4 at Dawson-Bryant Middle School where they will construct the sculptures made from the donated canned goods.

“The bean part came as an afterthought to bring more people in,” Stevens said. “So we decided to have a bean cook-off and invite businesses, schools, agencies and media to participate.”

During the bean cook off, ballots will be available for people to vote on the sculpture they like the best.

“Our theme is “Wonders of the World or Wonders of Ohio,” she said.

At the end of the day after the sculptures are completed and judged, the local food banks will be getting all the canned goods.

“We’re hoping to help stock all of the food banks in Lawrence County,” Stevens said.