Can race incites Colfax students

Bleachers of children are screaming and cheering, fists pumping, feet stomping the rails. A collective, roaring chant for each competitor fills the room and shakes the floor.

Children scream and cheer for their champions of the can race Dec. 17.

The ruckus in the Colfax Jennings Elementary gym is almost deafening as can after can rolls down the ramp in the annual children’s Can Race.

More than 400 children from the kindergarten through eighth grade school Friday watched each classroom compete against other classrooms until a final winner rolled the fastest can.

Fifth graders Ben Ahmann, left, and Tucker Gleason, right, watch as P.E. teacher Phil Hergert rolls a set of cans down the ramp. Gleason won the Dec. 17 can race and Ahmann is last year’s can race king.

Winner with the fastest can this year was fifth-grader Tucker Gleason.

Fifth grader Ben Ahmann won the school-wide competition last year with his prize can of A and W soda pop. The biggest thrill is his classroom cheering him on, he said.

“I felt excited! Just pumped up,” Ahmann told the Gazette.

And what is his secret to success?

“I shake up my can before I race it so it’s all fizz,” he said. He competed again this year with his can, coming close (but not quite) to winning again. Each year, the elementary holds the Can Race the day before Christmas break, then turns around and donates all the cans of food to the Colfax FISH food pantry.

School counselor Chris Carney said the event makes the kids go wild.

“I think it’s great for kids to just come together and just enjoy themselves and have fun. The business of school can be kind of serious,” she said.

Fastest cans this year seemed to be mandarin oranges, canned pineapple and the occasional tin of chicken broth, Carney said with a laugh.

“We’ve outlawed certain cans by the way,” she added. Plus-size juice tins are outlawed because they are so heavy they inevitably roll down the ramp too fast.

The excitement starts when each child brings in their own can of food in December. Each class conducts a roll-off among its students on the ramp. On the final race day, winners of each classroom go up against one another.

“It’s just a hoot,” Carney said.

Food pantry director Hannah Walker estimated both the elementary and high school donated more than 700 pounds of food this year.

“They’ve provided us with the absolute staples we need. We have a lot of fruit, Spaghettios - and they sorted all of them by subject matter which makes them really easy to put away,” said Walker.

“They’ve gotten us exactly the things we need. They’ve gone off the list we’ve given them,” she said.