The Rhetoric of Canning

This past weekend, I had the incredible opportunity to go canning.  For anyone who doesn’t know what canning is, here is a brief explanation.  Canning involves getting off campus in order to raise money for THON.  When canning, you go to different street intersections with cans and collect money from cars driving by.  This is most organizations’ biggest fundraising effort for THON, and if you are out and about on these weekends, it is almost guaranteed that you will see at least one or two groups canning around the state.

While canning this weekend, I began to think about the rhetoric surrounding the fundraiser.   Canners often wear big signs that are distributed to the different orgs around campus.  Unfortunately, I do not think that these signs are too effective.

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As you can see, the posters say a lot about what the canners are collecting money for.  My problem with them is this, though: the print is way too small for a car driving past to be able to quickly read.  As I was canning, I found that many people were able to give the poster a quick glance but drove away frowning because they could not read everything that it says. In addition, for people who are stopped at traffic lights, it is tough to read these signs unless you are one of the first cars in line.   In this way, I think these posters are not as effective as they could be.

I do think that, at some intersections, these posters can be effective.  One of the main goals of THON is to raise awareness for pediatric cancer.  When most people think of cancer, they tend to think of skin cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, etc.  Most people do not stop to think about pediatric cancer.  That being said, these posters do indeed raise awareness for the disease that is more common than most people think.  I just wish that they were more effective in accomplishing this goal.

Canning is a great way to spread awareness further outside of the Penn State community, and it is of course a great way to raise money for the Four Diamonds Fund.  My only suggestion would be to make a poster that was easier to read.  I think this is one way that THON can further spread awareness and raise even more money for the kids!

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One thought on “The Rhetoric of Canning

  1. Beth – although I haven’t gone canning yet, I can see from the picture you posted that the text is very small. I think if we held up signs that said “FTK!” then maybe people would get interested, because they could clearly read these 3 large letters on a poster. This would cause them to maybe google what “FTK” is on their iPhone and remember these 3 letters, instead of squinting to read a sentence about what the Four Diamonds Fund is. I think simple rhetoric such as an acronym is sometimes more powerful than descriptive text. I’ll keep this in mind when I go canning in November!

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