FOOD DRIVE DELIVERS FOR FAMILIES

Almost 200K pounds collected for food bank

The Letter Carriers Food Drive collected 198,370 pounds of food donations to the Roadrunner Food Bank.

The annual Letter Carriers Food Drive this past Saturday delivered 198,370 pounds of food donations to Roadrunner Food Bank, an increase of 23,000 pounds over last year’s drive.

Mag Strittmatter, president and CEO of Roadrunner Food Bank said, the food drive also represents a relief from the shortage of nonperishable food items the food bank has been experiencing the last couple of months.

“We are tremendously grateful. Our community recognizes that not everyone in our state has access to basic needs like food,” she said. “Thanks to each and every single letter carrier who has helped, and to each and every single member of our community who gave food.”

For more than two decades, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the United States Postal Service and the Rural Letter Carriers’ Association have come together on the Saturday before Thanksgiving to collect food that people leave at their mailboxes for donation to Roadrunner.

It is one of two letter carrier drives held each year. The second one held in May, the annual Stamp Out Hunger drive, is conducted nationally.

The shortage of perishable food has occurred nationwide. The reason is not clear, but it is offset to some extent by increased donations of milk, beans and other items from the government, which purchases it to help stabilize farm prices, said Roadrunner spokeswoman Sonya Warwick. About 20 percent of Roadrunner’s food comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the majority of that is currently perishable goods.

Roadrunner is part of Feeding America, a network of 200 affiliated member food banks and more than 60,000 partner agencies that include food pantries, soup kitchens, group homes, shelters, schools and senior programs. In New Mexico, Roadrunner supplies food to nearly 500 locations through its sister food banks in Santa Fe, Clovis, Farmington and Gallup, Warwick said.

Through that statewide network, more than 70,000 people are provided food weekly, or about 33 million pounds of food a year, she said.

“We have more than doubled our distribution in the last 10 years because we needed to. We have such high poverty rates in New Mexico, and with that comes hunger.”

According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap survey, which looks at hunger in all 50 states down to the county level, New Mexico ranks first in the nation in food insecurity. Just over 25 percent of New Mexico children are at risk of hunger. That’s one in every four kids, or about 125,210 kids in all.

New Mexico ranks sixth in the nation for hunger among adults and children, with 15.8 percent of the state’s residents reporting food insecurity, or 327,930 people.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life.