With students now back in school, the Children Healthy Eating on Weekends, CHEW, program is more important than ever, and the United Way of Onslow County is holding a community competition to collect donations.
The United We “Can” sculpture competition is in its third year and was created as a way to replenish CHEW shelves following the busy holiday season.
The CHEW program provides food for students in need to take home with them each weekend.
Raquel Painter, United Way of Onslow president, said CHEW serves around 1,200 children every weekend in Onslow County. The program was started many years ago by teachers in the Dixon-area who noticed the need.
“During the holidays, everybody is so giving and everybody provides food, makes sure families are fed, but then after the holidays, it kind of dwindles down,” Painter said.
“We really want to ensure people still know that children still need to be fed, especially after the holidays, because like I said, donations aren’t as strong in January.”
The United We “Can” event invites local businesses and organizations to collect canned food items and create a sculpture out of those cans. Painter said contestants can create whatever sculpture they’d like, adding that businesses often build something related to their work.
For example, in 2024, Coastal Carolina Community College created a graduation cap, while others, like Advantage Gold Realty, built a house out of their cans.
The community will have the opportunity to vote for the winners on social media from Jan. 19-23, with all canned food items from the sculptures being donated to the CHEW program following the competition.
“The shelves are kind of deplenished because people are giving for other programs during November and December, which we’re grateful that they’re able to do that, but (in) January, we really wanted to start this event to (say) CHEW’s still here, let’s do this fun event to get the shelves filled again,” Painter said.
As of Tuesday, eight businesses had joined the contest, including Advantage Gold Realty, Marine Federal Credit Union, Community Workforce Solutions of Onslow County, Integrity Home Mortgage, Movement Mortgage, Richlands Order of Eastern Stars, Century 21 Champion Real Estate — Eastern NC and Skyline Realty Group.
Published By Morgan Starling in The Daily News on Jan 14, 2026