Chicago, IL — The 26th annual food drive by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), held on Saturday, May 12, resulted in 322,623 pounds of food collected, donated by Chicago customers.   It was the 2nd highest total collected in the last 5 years in Chicago.   Nationwide figures have not been released yet.  Last year 75 million pounds were collected in the U.S. and U.S. territories, the third-highest total in the event’s history.   In Chicago, the food collected 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.  The Postal Service thanks customers for their food donations and continued support of the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.

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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