Postal Workers Collect Donations to 'Stamp Out Hunger' Saturday

Postal workers across America will collect food donations for the 20th annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive, the nation’s largest single-day food drive operated by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and the U.S. Postal Service.

Letter carriers in San Diego County are asking residents to support the food drive by placing a bag of nonperishable food items by their mailboxes before their mail is delivered on Saturday, May 12.

Residents can also drop off food donations at their local post offices.

The Food Bank is requesting its most-needed food items:

• canned tuna
• canned meats
• canned stews
• canned fruits and vegetables
• canned soups
• pasta
• rice and cereal

Letter carriers will collect the bags of food from mailboxes at residential homes and participating post offices, and deliver them back to the Food Bank to be distributed to the community to help those at risk of hunger.

Last year, the food drive collected 659,459 pounds of food in San Diego County, and 70.2 million nationally. Since its inception in 1983, the Stamp Out Hunger food drive has stocked 1.1 billion pounds of nonperishable items on food bank shelves across the country.

The food drive stocks the Food Bank’s shelves for the summer months when 230,000 low-income school children throughout the county stop receiving free school meals and their parents are forced to turn to the Food Bank for assistance.

“Letter carriers are proud that this year’s food drive is the twentieth anniversary," Ricardo Guzman, president of NALC Branch 70, said. "Every year we look forward to the NALC food drive because it is one way of helping our communities. It is an awesome feeling knowing you are helping those in need.”

—From a Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank press release.