Makeshift signs crafted from old cardboard boxes donned slogans including “You CAN help!” pointed in the direction of can mountain, a pile of goods collected for Wednesday’s third annual Harvest Mandala Food Drive.
The drive, hosted by the Freshman Signature course Living Color, gathers non-perishable food items and fresh produce to donate to the Capital Area Food Bank. This year’s event featured performances as well as merchants selling items from eco-friendly T-shirts to jewelry. A percentage of the proceeds from each item was donated to either the food bank or the event.
As much about art and culture as it is about food, the drive focuses on using the colors and arrangement of the donated items to make a statement.
“We only really have Thanksgiving nowadays, with eating a turkey inside at a table,” said Luanne Stovall, the event’s coordinator and lecturer in the College of Fine Arts. “And we’ve kind of lost our roots with traditional cultures that celebrated harvest by laying produce on the land or making a madala, which means circle in Sanskrit. We thought we would reconnect with those roots and bring, in a creative way, locally grown produce.”
The overall atmosphere of the event had a festive tone, with dancers and drummers providing entertainment while the can mountain grew.
“Basically, it’s about not being your ordinary food drive,” said advertising sophomore April Bingham. “Instead of giving people horrifying statistics about how many people are starving, we want to encourage people to give by letting them have more fun as opposed to being morose and somber.”
Stovall said the visual aspect of the food drive is one of the most important factors. Fruits and vegetables were arranged around the pile of canned goods in groups of colors. She said the different colors faced north, south, east and west to echo the beliefs of ancient cultures.
“The different Native American people always associated the cardinal directions with colors,” Stovall said. “All over the world, and we’ve lost that in a post-modern world. We wanted to try to draw people in, to want to know more, and to interact with it. That’s the idea — to come together.”
As the drive came to a close in anticipation for the Capital Area Food Bank truck to arrive, the circles of produce that extended across the South Mall tightened around the pile of cans in the middle.
“We’re trying to say, in a very shattered and fragmented world, you get to focus on wholeness,” Stovall said. “That’s the whole point of the circle: it’s beautiful and it’s whole.”
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