Postal Service Letter Carriers To Collect Food Across the Country on May 9

Local Letter Carriers Join in Effort to ‘Stamp Out Hunger’

DULUTH, GA—The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) will conduct its 17th annual nationwide Stamp Out Hunger! Food Drive on Saturday, May 9th. Stamp Out Hunger! Is the nation’s largest single-day food drive and has netted more than 900 million pounds of food since 1992. Last year, more than 73.7 million pounds of food were collected nationally, with nearly 200,000 pounds collected in metro Atlanta.

Making a donation is easy. Customers should leave their non-perishable food donation in a bag near their mailbox on Saturday, May 9th, before their Letter Carrier arrives. Food collected during Saturday’s drive will be delivered to local community food banks and food pantries for distribution. For participation in your area, check with your local Post Office.

Letter Carriers in more than 10,000 cities and towns will deliver much more than mail when they walk and drive along their postal routes to collect food donations for distribution to community banks and pantries throughout the country. Nearly 1,500 local NALC branches in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands are involved in the drive.

Campbell Soup Company is once again lending its support by joining the Postal Service in co-sponsoring the printing of over 130 million postcards for delivery to postal customers announcing the Food Drive. Other co-sponsors of the drive with the Letter Carriers’ union are Feeding America, formerly known as America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s food bank network; the United Way of America and its local United Ways; and the AFL-CIO.

Founded in 1979, the Atlanta Community Food Bank currently distributes almost 2 million pounds of food and other donated grocery items each month to more than 800 nonprofit partner agencies in 38 counties in Metro Atlanta and North Georgia. The Food Bank supports a wide range of people in need, from children to the working poor. Food pantries, community kitchens, childcare centers, night shelters and senior centers are among the agencies that receive product from the Food Bank and provide food and other critical resources for low-income Georgians who suffer from hunger and food insecurity.

(Editor’s Note: Food collected by Atlanta Letter Carriers representing NALC Branch 73 will be delivered to the Atlanta Community Food Bank (ACFB) located at 732 Joseph E. Lowery Blvd, NW. Volunteers from the ACFB, the Postal Service and the community will be on hand to unload and sort food donations as they arrive, at approximately 6:00 p.m.)