Workers Will Collect Food Left By Mailboxes on May 12
[This article has been updated to reflect 2018 information]
4/27/17 – With the goal to Stamp Out Hunger, the nation’s largest annual single day food drive will take place on Saturday, May 12, 2018. This year marks the 26th anniversary of the letter carrier food drive, which has collected more than 1.5 billion pounds of nonperishable food nationwide since 1993, with 71 million collected in 2017 across 10,000 cities.
“Millions of Americans live from one day to the next uncertain where their next meal will come from,” said Al Lalicata, City Letter Carrier and food drive coordinator. “Letter carriers see many of these folks on their routes and want to do what they can to help those in need.”
The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) hosts the food drive in partnership with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA) the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), United Way Worldwide, AFL-CIO, AARP Foundation, Valpak and Valassis.
“Since the food drive is such a huge event, preparation begins months in advance,” said Lalicata. “The Marshfield office coordinates food drives in over 20 local communities.”
All collected food stays within the community in which is was picked up, unless there is no existing place from which the community can distribute the food. Marshfield divides its collected food evenly between Soup or Socks and St. Vincent de Paul food banks. Many of the other communities, such as Stratford and Spencer, use local churches to distribute the collected food.
“This year we hope to break 50,000 pounds of collected food from all of our local offices, and hopefully 20,000 pounds of that will come from Marshfield,” said Lalicata.
Customers will receive reminder postcards and plastic bags in which they can place their donations at or near their mailbox on Saturday, May 12, 2018. Those donating are encouraged to check expiration dates on food packages, as those that are expired cannot be accepted.
“One very tough and unfortunate thing I learned last year is that a lot of the food we collected was unable to be distributed because it was already expired,” said Lalicata. “Please check those expiration dates before setting out your donations.”
On the day of the food drive, letter carriers and their volunteer helpers collect all the non-perishable food and deliver it to the local food bank where it is weighed, sorted, and prepped for distribution to those in need.
“The food drive is an important and necessary event because so many Americans struggle to get enough to eat every day,” said Lalicata. “It’s not unusual for food banks’ supplies to run low as winter ends. The timing of this food drive is particularly important to restock those shelves.”
Volunteers are always needed on the day of, and several days after, the food drive to help sort the collected food at the Oak Avenue Community Center. If interested in helping, contact Soup or Socks at (715) 387-1796, or SVDP at [email protected]. View the Facebook event here. More information on NALC can be found at their website.
