LITTLE ROCK, AR – It’s been 17 years since USPS and the National Association of Letter Carriers launched their annual drive to stock the nation’s food banks and pantries to “Stamp Out Hunger”. Year after year, the NALC Food Drive has been the best in the nation, collecting almost 1 billion pounds of donations and delivering the goods to those in need in local communities. It’s become the world’s largest, single-day charitable food event.
On Saturday, May 9, you can make a difference for thousands of Arkansans by donating food as part of the “Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.” Customers are asked to place nonperishable food items next to their mailbox before their letter carrier delivers the mail. Your letter carrier will do the rest, taking the food to the post office where it is sorted and delivered to an area food bank or pantry. In addition to your carrier many others assist in this effort such as rural carriers and other postal employees, as well as members of other unions and thousands of civic volunteers.
Last year, letter carriers collected a record 73.1 million pounds of food for the needy from postal customers, the fifth consecutive year that totals topped 70 million pounds.
Millions of people are struggling in this economy; thousands have been laid off and struggling to nutritional meals on the table while managing to pay their essential bills. Hunger is all around us, over 17% of Arkansans live below the poverty line – that means that 1 in 6 of your neighbors struggle in providing enough food for their family. Around late spring, most food banks begin running out of donations received during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods, this is your opportunity to help re-stock the shelves.
Over 125 million post cards, sponsored by the Campbell Soup Company will be mailed to postal customers to remind them of the drive
Public Service Announcements featuring movie and television stars David Arquette and Courteney Cox, as well as the Harlem Globetrotters, are being made available throughout the country. Valpak Direct Marketing Systems is focusing 40 million of its envelopes on encouraging food donations and Valassis is having 85 million of its mail-delivered Red Plum wraps include promotions for the drive.
Other co-sponsors of the drive with the letter carriers’ union are Feeding America, formerly known as America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s food bank network; the United Way of America and its local United Ways; and the AFL-CIO.
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Editors: Digital copies of food drive artwork are available upon request to vonbergen@nalc.org
An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 149 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes, six days a week. It has 34,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services, not tax dollars, to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.
