Jake and Ethan Cranch, Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board Trustee, Ms. Jaine Klassan Jeninga, mother Crystal Cranch and Food Bank Executive Director George Leger attend “Souper Art Can” launch at the Art Gallery of Northumberland.

Port Hope - It's not every day that inspiration walks into your studio in the form of a 9 and 11 year old who have an idea to raise some money for the food bank, but that is exactly what happened at Limelight Advertising & Design.

Possibly the youngest philanthropist we know, Jake Cranch, who attends Grade 6 at Ganaraska Trail Public School, came up with a new idea to help those less fortunate in his community. He also felt that he should recruit his younger brother, Ethan – Grade 4, to help out. Jake’s idea was to sell soup. Ethan's idea was that he and his brother could create an art piece to inspire hope for those who toil from day-to-day and often find it difficult to put food on the table without the assistance of the food bank.

With that art piece they thought of sticking it on cans of soup and selling the soup to raise money for Northumberland Fare Share Food Banks - the charity that Limelight has worked with for over a year now to help raise the banks' profile and better provide for the community it serves.

Nutrition label serves to remind people about the food security challenges the region must deal with, along with the goals the banks must attain in 2011.

Limelight's designers worked to expand the project but ensured that Jake and Ethan kept their hand in it. “These kids were prepared to purchase soup with their own money, label the cans and sell it”, said Peter Gabany, Limelight's Creative Director, “I knew that we could help with that and also knew that it would be a tremendous opportunity to build much needed awareness for the food banks of Cobourg and Port Hope”.

Designers Luke Despatie and Adrienne Boyer set to work creating a generic label in which Ethan and Jake could place their art. Limelight added a nutrition label filled with statistics about food security in the region. The kids were asked to involve their entire class, hold a competition, select the best works and Limelight would secure financial assistance to print enough labels to cover the 5 skids of soup that the Food Bank had just purchased. The Ganaraska Trail public school's art classes swung into action and 12 pieces of original art made it first to exhibition and then onto can labels.

“The results have been marvelous”, said Gabany, “Cameco Corporation helped to fund the project; the curator of the Art Gallery of Northumberland helped launch the program through their annual Children's art exhibition; the press have been very generous with their coverage of Ethan and Jake; students from the local high school chipped in by helping to apply labels to the cans and Crayola furnished some great prizes for all the students that participated”.

Since the launch the Cranch brothers have presented to the Food Banks' Annual General meeting with the Honourable Christine Stewart in attendance, several service clubs including Northumberland Sunrise Rotary and to their school where the two boys handed out the Crayola awards to their classmates.

Sales have been brisk with corporate purchases and the community has responded with very generous contributions to the program.

Further results have been realized when local School Board Trustee, Ms. Jaine Klassan Jeninga said that she would bring the program to the attention of other school boards across Ontario and the Ontario Association of Food Banks volunteer coordinator, Amanda Finley King forwarded the program information across all OAFB member food banks.

At the time of this release and sales just starting the boys have raised nearly $2,000 but with 5 skids of soup the target is between $18,000 and $24,000 in sales. Limelight is proud to be involved with such energy and inspiration of these two boys. “We can learn a lot from our youth, all it takes is an idea and a little hard work”, added Gabany.

Soup can be purchased for $2 per can or a six pack for only $10. The cans contain either vegetable or vegetable beef soup. Interested parties can place their volume orders by contacting Northumberland Fare Share Food Banks at 905-372-5308.