LETTER CARRIERS’ FOOD DRIVE IN 26TH YEAR
Food drive meets ramped-up need in summer months.
The National Association of Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger food drive, now in its 26th year, has helped to collect and provide millions of pounds of food nationwide for those in need, and its event in Palm Beach County will run from Saturday through May 12.
Throughout the week, Palm Beach County letter carriers will leave a postcard and a bag in residential mailboxes, and residents have the option to fill the bag with food and place it back in the mailbox. On May 12, the letter carriers will pick up the bags.
“Food drives like these really restock the food pantries and the local food banks,” said Melissa Wise of United Way of Palm Beach County.
“When people think of Palm Beach, they think it’s a very wealthy area and that everyone is doing well here, but one in every six of our neighbors is suffering, not knowing where their next meal is going to come from,” said Palm Beach County Food Bank Programs Manger Cady Sandler.
The food drive is held annually each May because the need to feed the hungry is ramped up heading into the summer months. With schools closing for summer break, students who were provided lunches during the school year will no longer have access to those meals.
“Our school district does a phenomenal job of feeding the children, but schools aren’t always open,” Sandler said.
“We are in the communities every single day, we see the need, we see the poverty, we see the children that are going to be out of school and aren’t going to have their lunch meals,” said Starr Hunter, a local representative for the National Association of Letter Carriers. “We try to fill our food bank pantries and our churches to give them food for the need over the summer months.”
Last year, the Palm Beach County Food Bank (PBCFB) received more than 100,000 pounds of food from the Stamp Out Hunger food drive, according to the PBCFB website.
That number may have been higher if all the food that was received was usable.
“Please do not donate glass items, please try to stick to canned goods, boxed goods, anything nonperishable and nothing that melts,” Wise said.
The postal carrier trucks will transport the donated food bags to one of three designated unloading sites in Palm Beach County on May 12, where people from the food bank and volunteers will be waiting to unload the goods and sort the items into different bins. The bins then go to the food banks, and the food banks distribute the contents to smaller food pantries.
“We do this because we care,” Starr said. “It is all about giving back.”