By David Gordon, associate editor
The CVPost
Coming to a mailbox or postal slot near you this Saturday (May 9) – the U.S. Postal Workers’ 23rd annual “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive.
The event – sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) – is the nation’s largest single-day food drive. It has collected more than 1 billion pounds of food since its inception in 1993. Last year, individuals donated more than 72 million pounds of food – the 11th consecutive year at least 70 million pounds were collected.
Locally, letter carriers collected more than 150,000 pounds of food, up 11,000 pounds from 2013.
This year, letter carriers in more than 10,000 communities will collect food donations left by residents at their mailboxes. The food will be delivered to food banks and other hunger-relief organizations.
The drive seeks non-perishable food items, including canned goods; boxed dry goods, such as cereals, pasta and rice; and bottled drinks, such as juice. Anything in glass containers and food items that have passed their expiration date should be avoided.
Food items will be picked up on Saturday by local postal carriers, assisted by United Way volunteers. Food collected in Eau Claire will be delivered to the St. Francis Food Pantry and Feed My People Food Bank. Chippewa Falls food donations will be taken to the Salvation Army Food Pantry.
Residents also may leave in their mailboxes checks written out to any of these food pantries or to the Trinity Lutheran Food Pantry and postal carriers will collect them. Checks should be placed in an envelope marked “Stamp Out Hunger.”
Members of the public are welcome to volunteer on Saturday as neighborhood food collectors in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. For more information, or to sign up, visit www.uwgvc.org/stamp-out-hunger or contact James Peters at 715-834-5043.
The “Stamp Out Hunger” drive takes place at a critical time for food pantries, which see a considerable drop in donations at this time of the year. These programs also face a dramatic increase in need during the summer when school lunch programs no longer are available. Estimates based on the “County Health Rankings & Roadmaps” document indicate that some 16 percent of Chippewa and Eau Claire County children under 18 live below the poverty line.