Toy logs replicate Dubai’s iconic One Za’abeel building at Agana Shopping Center
- Admin
- Oct 6
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 7
Tower for Humanity-Be Heartfelt food drive generates thousands of donated canned goods
By Jayvee Vallejera
The Guinness World Record for the largest toy timber structure was a scaled replica of Chicago's Willis Tower, which brothers Landon and Brandon Aydlett built in June 2022 using 74,019 blocks.
The One Za’abeel replica they built last week at the Agana Shopping Center is even bigger, using approximately 102,000 logs. That makes it unofficially the largest one, said Landon Aydlett.
Yet it wasn’t the scale of the project nor the amount of labor the Aydletts poured into the effort that brought one man to tears. Rather, it was the project’s core mission of helping people in need that touched one man and made him appreciate what the Aydletts are doing.
“I met a gentleman who [had come] to Guam from Saipan a few years ago. He shared how he was homeless and came to Guam for any opportunity available.
He came into the shopping center and asked about the tower [and] what it was for. He broke down in tears of gratitude that people care enough for others to put in such time and effort to raise awareness for those in need,” Landon Aydlett said.
The Aydlett brothers' tower projects—which they call Towers for Humanity—support a cause in collaboration with a charity group.
This year, the Aydletts collaborated with Be Heartfelt, a charity that feeds Guam's children in need. The project’s completion last Friday capped the Tower for Humanity’s food drive, collecting a total of 24,000 packaged/canned food items that will be farmed out to Be Heartfelt’s four distribution centers in Guam.
Landon Aydlett said both the tower project and the food drive had a phenomenal reception over the weekend.
“We had a great show of teams and an enormous volume of food that'll stock the four Be Heartfelt pantries now and into the new year,” he said.
Landon Aydlett said a lot of people have already visited the Agana Shopping Center to see the tower and to support the food drive.
It isn’t just the Guam community that is taking notice of the project. It also drew the attention of tourists from Korea, Taiwan and Japan, plus people from the Federated States of Micronesia and the U.S. mainland, said Landon Aydlett.
He has also received messages of support from the U.S. mainland, the Middle East, across the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific.
“We also had a donation from a kid in Iowa who had a lemonade stand over the summer to donate to the tower project/Be Heartfelt. He's been a fan of these projects for a couple of years now,” Landon Aydlett said.
A news release announcing the completion of the project said it took the brothers 10 days, nearly 200 person-hours of building the tower and more than 300 person-hours on construction and groundwork for this record-breaking work.
The most challenging part, Landon Aydlett said, was recreating The Link, the horizontal structure that connects the two towers of the One Za'abeel, which holds the Guinness World Record for the world's longest cantilevered building.
“I knew that we could replicate it, somehow. I didn't accept any other outcome. But I wasn't sure how to do it, although we had ideas,” he said.
They tossed around several options while piecing The Link together, making adjustments as they went along.
“We ultimately treated this project as three separate structures versus a single, complex structure, which made The Link more manageable for our specific blocks and materials,” he said.
The Link took them three days to complete.
Once done, the larger Tower A stood at 18.5 feet, the smaller Tower B stood at 13.5 feet and The Link extended almost 14 feet horizontally.
Brandon and Landon Aydlett were the tower’s primary builders. They did have some help from time to time, but the brothers had to do most of the work.
The tower is on display at the Agana Shopping Center, but it will likely come down on Oct. 11, said Landon Aydlett.
This project, however, will not go into the official record books because of the narrow window of opportunity they had to get the project recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, said Landon Aydlett.
“This tower will not become an official record due to reporting requirements and evidence needed to support the record,” he said.
Getting any feat into the Guinness World Records takes a long process, requiring an extended amount of time for application approval, building and blocking requirements, as well as the need for witnesses, data collection and extensive photo/video evidence.
In this case, Landon Aydlett said their support for the charitable group Be Heartfelt was their primary goal. “We constructed this tower simply for a great cause to support the island,” he said.
When asked what's next, Landon Aydlett said he and his brother have some ideas. Both meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Guam, Landon Aydlett said they are trying to work something out where they can have a clear block of two to three weeks for a large project, possibly in May, and then another in September. He said they try to keep these tower projects to no more than twice a year.
“Ultimately, our top goal is to benefit the people of Guam with our projects and to give back to the region with something fun and uniquely an Only on Guam experience,” he added.
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