Letter Carriers’ Food Drive: SC Food Banks Report Donations of 393,386 lbs.

Many more local food pantries and churches receive donations

The reported numbers are in, and South Carolina’s hungry have received generous donations from their communities through the 17th annual Letter Carriers’ National Food Drive, which took place on May 9. South Carolina’s 995 City Carriers and 1,448 Rural Carriers, plus hundreds of community volunteers teamed up to collect and transport the food to the needy.

The total represents the vast majority of donations to three major food banks collected by letter carriers at the 322 stations, branches and post offices in the 290-6 ZIP Code area that make up the Greater South Carolina District. Many more pounds of unreported donations were made among the smaller rural post offices. Donations collected by those offices were turned over to local churches, charities and food pantries.

The distribution of the food is as follows: Harvest Hope Food Bank in Columbia (51,739 lbs.), Lowcountry Food Bank in Charleston (100,008 lbs.) and Upstate Food Bank in Greenville (201,937 lbs.) resulting in a total of 393,386 lbs.

Nationally, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) reported final results showing 73,414,533 pounds of non-perishable food collected, a slight increase over the previous record of 73.1 million pounds set in 2008. It was the sixth consecutive year above 70 million pounds and brought the total for the drive’s 17 years to over 982 million pounds of food.

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