INDIANAPOLIS, IN — According to the town’s website, if you’re looking for small-town Hoosier hospitality, there’s no better place to find it than in Burlington, IN, situated on the southern edge of Carroll County.
Today, Sept. 21, 2012 at 11 a.m. visitors will have a chance to sample the town’s sociability as the 10th Village Post Office (VPO) in the U.S. Postal Service’s Greater Indiana District opens in the town’s hardware store.
The Burlington VPO is located in Barnard Lumber, 805 Michigan St., Burlington, 46915-0206.
According to Deb Keller, manager of Barnard Lumber, the hardware store has been in business for more than 102 years. The store is next door to the Burlington Post Office, and Keller says they decided to set up a VPO as an outreach to the community. “Most of the people here in Burlington are older, and we thought it would be convenient for them to be able to buy their stamps and pick up postal products,” she said.
Barnard Lumber opens from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, and as the store is open later than the Post Office during the week, and open on Saturdays, Keller sees this as a plus for those who wish to buy stamps or get packaging outside postal hours.
The new postal center will be officially opened by Acting Manager of Post Office Operations Larry Dauby and several USPS executives and local officials will be present at the event. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. and an open house will follow from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Last year, the Postal Service introduced the VPO model as an alternate retail location for postal products and services, especially in rural communities.
VPOs are operated by local businesses contracting with the Postal Service, and offer a range of popular postal products and services including stamps and flat-rate packaging.
Burlington is the 58th VPO to open nationwide. Another VPO is slated to open in Spiceland on Sept. 25.
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The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 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 $65 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 35th in the 2011 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 for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute. Follow USPS on Twitter @USPS_PR and at Facebook.com/usps.
