Carnival Cruise Line Built World's Largest Cruise Ship Made Of Canned Food

Cruise lines are good corporate stewards in their headquarter cities and home ports and often help out charities behind the scenes. This effort was more visible as Carnival Cruise Line capped off a Holiday Food & Fund drive in New Orleans benefiting the Second Harvest Food Bank by constructing the world’s largest cruise ship made of canned food which was displayed last Monday night at the New Orleans Saints game. Carnival is the “Official Cruise Line of the New Orleans Saints” and the 30-foot-long cruise ship built from more than 17,000 cans of food was the culmination of a Holiday Food & Fund drive involving New Orleans-area schools that was sponsored by Carnival and the Saints.

The can structure was built in consultation with the New Orleans chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and required more than 100 volunteers who expertly positioned the cans—one at a time—to create a reproduction of a Carnival cruise ship featuring such design elements as the line’s signature winged funnel, running lights and more. Both Carnival and the New Orleans Saints provided incentives to students in New Orleans-area schools to participate in the food drive by awarding classroom prizes including free pizza parties, Saints lithograph footballs and free cruises to schools who collected the most cans of food. The winning schools were announced during half-time at the game. The joint initiative will provide more than 75,000 meals for those in need in the greater New Orleans area this holiday season.

“Carnival has been a part of New Orleans for more than two decades and we greatly value the opportunity to give back to our homeport communities,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. “This Holiday Food & Fund drive in partnership with the New Orleans Saints and Second Harvest was a fun and rewarding way to provide tens of thousands of meals to those in need this holiday season,” said Christine Duffy, Carnival’s president.

Image Courtesy Carnival Cruise Line