Months of planning paid off when thousands of cans were made into a giant food pyramid and it will all benefit Superstorm Sandy victims.
25,585 cans and each was placed delicately and with care.
The canned food pyramid in Cranford stands 15 and a half feet tall and 10 feet wide.
Its secret ingredient is good will.
"I thought it was going to be amazing," said Mark Dingelstadt, Chairman, teen advisory board.
The Cranford teen student advisory board is used to organizing polar plunges, battle of the bands, but this year's event was driven by Superstorm Sandy.
The idea was to collect canned food to give to those who so desperately need it.
"So after the first day of collecting we had enough cash so I said let's go to shop right and take advantage of their sale," Dingelstadt said.
And did they ever! They bought 900 cans that day and have a 27-foot long receipt to prove it.
After that, everything they did was big.
Donations came pouring in so they got an architect and an engineer.
"I want to Instagram it, Tweet it, Facebook it," Dingelstadt said.
They got Eyewitness News' attention.
Shop Right donated 20,000 cans!
They decided to shoot for a world record.
"It was more to feed the people, but we though why not go for it," said Shamus Garcia, a high school freshman.
"The first level was kind of hard. We knew we had to line all the cans up ,but once we knew what we were doing it came easily," said Julie Bryne, a high school sophomore.
And on May 4th at 8:30 a.m. they began. There is an amazing time lapse video.
"They placed consistently about 2,000 cans per hour," Dingelstadt said.
14 hours later, they had done it.
The current world record was held by a bank in South Africa.
"I kind of forgot how tired I was because I was so happy we accomplished it. That really didn't matter," said Kevin Dingelstadt, a high school sophomore.
That attitude and the fact that so many people will benefit from all of this food is the real reward there!
The scaffolding has been set aside and the pyramid stands tall.
It should be a world record, Guinness just has to verify it.
But so much more important is that on Saturday the cans will start to come down and the majority of them will go to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey.
