SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Postal Service is hosting a series of Passport Fairs in San Francisco on Friday, April 8 and Saturday, April 9, 2011 to provide passport information to U.S. citizens and to accept passport applications. The Postal Service is joining the U.S. Department of State in celebrating “Passport Day in the USA,” a national passport acceptance and outreach event.

“We are happy to leverage the convenience of the Postal Service and partner with the Department of State to help our customers apply for passports,” said Theresa Hartenstein, acting postmaster of San Francisco. In 2010, the Postal Service accepted 6.7 million passport applications at retail locations across the country.

Information on the cost and how to apply for a U.S. passport book and/or passport card can be found at www.usps.com/passport/ or www.travel.state.gov. U.S. citizens also may obtain passport information by phone, in English or Spanish, by calling the National Passport Information Center toll free at 1-877-487-2778.

On either April 8 or 9, customers can visit one of the following locations in San Francisco to apply for a passport without first making an appointment:

* These Post Offices do not have passport photos available for sale.

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Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/welcome.htm.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.