Letter carriers’ 26th annual food drive, May 12

Press release from MANNA FoodBank: 

The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) will conduct its 26th annual national food drive on Saturday, May 12. The Stamp Out Hunger® Food Drive, the country’s largest single-day food drive, provides residents with an easy way to donate food to those in need in the community.

Customers simply leave their donation of non-perishable goods next to their mailbox before the delivery of the mail on Saturday, May 12. Letter carriers will collect these food donations on that day as they deliver mail along their postal routes and distribute them to local food agencies. MANNA FoodBank, the food bank serving 16 counties of Western North Carolina, will receive most of the donations collected in Buncombe County. Additional feeding agencies throughout the Western North Carolina region will also benefit directly from this food drive.

The Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive is the nation’s largest single-day food drive and is held annually on the second Saturday in May in 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam. Visit www.nalc.org/food to learn more.

With the economic struggles many Americans face, particularly for residents in western North Carolina, the Letter Carriers’ Food Drive is as critical as ever. Not only do millions of Americans go hungry, organizations that help them are in need of replenishments. In WNC alone, over 100,000 people face a daily struggle with hunger. One in six people don’t know where they will get their next meal. Children are even more vulnerable: one in four WNC children face food insecurity.

Hunger affects about 50 million people around the country, including millions of children, senior citizens and veterans. Pantry shelves filled up through winter-holiday generosity often are bare by late spring. And, with most school meal programs suspended during summer months, millions of children must find alternate sources of nutrition.

Letter carriers see these struggles in the communities they serve, and they believe it’s important to do what they can to help.

On Saturday, May 12, as they deliver mail, the nation’s 175,000 letter carriers will collect donations left by residents near their mailboxes. People are encouraged to leave a sturdy bag—paper or plastic—containing non-perishable foods, such as canned soup, canned vegetables, canned meats and fish, pasta, peanut butter, rice or cereal, next to their mailbox before the regular mail delivery on that Saturday.

Letter carriers will take that food to local food banks, pantries or shelters. Several national partners are assisting the NALC in the food drive: the U.S. Postal Service, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA), the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), Valpak, United Way Worldwide, the AFL-CIO, the AARP Foundation and Valassis.

This year’s effort includes a public service announcement with award-winning actor and director Edward James Olmos. Television networks and stations can use this link to find and download high-quality versions of the PSA, in English and Spanish.

Since the first national Food Drive in 1993, the Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive has collected more than 1.5 billion pounds of food; last year’s drive brought in a record 80 million pounds of food.

People who have questions about the drive in their area should ask their letter carrier, contact their local post office, or go to nalc.org/food,facebook.com/StampOutHunger or twitter.com/StampOutHunger.