Chicago, IL — The 25th annual food drive by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), held on Saturday, May 13, collected 75 million pounds nationwide, the third-highest total in the event’s history.   Combined with last year’s record of 80.1 million pounds, that makes a two-year total of 155 million pounds—the highest back-to-back total in the drive’s history. 

In Chicago, this year’s food drive total was more than 4 times the amount collected last year.   In May, 603,597 pounds were collected compared to 137,208 in 2016. The last time over 500,000 pounds was collected was in 2013.  The food stays local, going to pantries in the zipcode area where collected.    

The Stamp Out Hunger® Food Drive is the country’s largest single-day food drive. It is held annually on the second Saturday in May in 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam.  In the quarter-century since it began, the annual food drive has collected almost 1.6 billion pounds of food.

Hunger affects about 50 million people around the country, including millions of children, senior citizens and veterans.

Several national partners assisted the NALC in this year’s food drive: the U.S. Postal Service, United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, United Way Worldwide, AARP Foundation, AFL-CIO, Valpak and Valassis.

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