Local Stamp Out Hunger drive COLLECTS 30,000 POUNDS OF FOOD
The recent National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive collected approximately 30,000 pounds of food. While the weight was the about the same as what was collected last year, more food was actually collected this year.
“As far as net pounds we're right around the where we were last year which is a great sustainable amount of food going into our community,” said Camille Wrinkle, executive director of Harvest Regional Food Bank. “The actual amount of food, the number of containers that we're filled with food actually increased but because of the type of foods we saw more of this year including boxed males, snack items and dry goods, the weight didn't reflect it.”
Harvest Regional Food Bank is dividing and organizing the food. Benefiting charities include Randy Sams' Outreach Shelter, Salvation Army, Texarkana Friendship Center, Domestic Violence Prevention, Inc. and Harvest.
“At this point we will go through and sort out the food that's been collected into equal amounts so each benefiting charity gets the same amount and they'll be able to collect that food in the next couple of weeks. We understand they may not have the storage capacity to take it all at one time,” Wrinkle said. “We're happy to help use our fleets and staff to collect it, weigh it and have it available for them.”
The food drive wouldn't be possible without the community or letter carriers.
“We really want to thank our community for stepping up and contributing to this food drive. It's much needed as we go into the summer and we have children who are away from free and reduced school lunches and breakfasts and families are having to provide more meals at home. We really appreciate all the contributions from the community as well as the National Association of Letter Carriers. They went above and beyond their normal job duties of distributing the mail. This added a lot of work onto their shift and we can't say enough to thank them for that,” Wrinkle said.