Roosevelt resident Andre Hurley is a can “dew” kind of kid.

His hobbies as a free runner and parkourist — moving from point A to point B as fast as possible — helped him with his plan of action when he decided to create something unique for the holiday season.

“I was on the Internet just surfing and I saw people making different things out of pop cans,” Hurley said. “I figured I’d just make something to go with Christmas and I thought of Mountain Dew since their cans are green and it's my favorite drink. I put on the different-colored cans for the ornaments and the two-liter on the top to make the star.”

With inspired thought and a plan in place, Hurley started collecting cans in June. He personally only drank about 100 of the cans and gathered most of the others from school. By December he had more than 600 cans and was ready to assemble the tree.

In less than four days, the 15-year-old and his father, Gary Hurley, fashioned an 8-foot-8 Christmas tree using a pvc pole, tape, construction flags, a two-liter bottle and the cans.

“We got the pipe and then we wrapped tape around it as a guideline so we could see where we were gonna drill the holes,” Hurley said. “ Then we got a drill and we drilled the bottom spot. We put the flags in and then we stood it up on the stand. We put the flags and cans on and we just kept doing that in a spiral. The higher we went, we cut them shorter.”

Hurley and his father rolled the flags up and inserted them in the cans. When the flag unrolled, it held the can in place. Then Hurley strung the tree with white lights.

“He hot-glued these other cans on,” Trudi Hurley said of her son. “They're the different brands of Mountain Dew. I thought he was creative and artistic, but I didn’t want pop cans all over the house. It turned out really nice though.”

The tree will have to be disassembled since it can't be stored or moved. Hurley is considering doing another tree next year, albeit taller. He likes to achieve his goals quickly and could use his existing cans toward achieving a taller tree. Since Mountain Dew is Hurley's favorite drink, collecting more cans to accommodate for the increased size shouldn't be a problem.

“Being a parkourist means using your environment to your advantage,” Hurley said with a smile on his face. “My living room ceiling is 17 feet tall.”