VIBURNUM, MO — G&W Foods, located at 10 Viburnum Center Rd., introduced Missouri’s latest Village Post Office (VPO) today.

The U.S. Postal Service introduced the VPO model as an expanded 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. There are currently more than 450 VPOs operating nationwide.

The Viburnum VPO will operate during G&W’s normal operating hours of 7 a.m. until 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday. The store is closed Sundays.

VPOs provide a range of services that include accepting mail, selling Forever stamps, and offering Priority Mail Flat Rate products with stamps for postage.

“The location of G&W Foods provides postal customers added convenience and is an important example of how the Postal Service is changing to better meet America’s needs,” said Mark Montgomery, Post Office Operations manager for the agency’s Kansas City-based Mid-America District. "The Postal Service also appreciates that G.W. Foods can accommodate Viburnum's PO Box holders."

The new Viburnum Village Post Office will be part of the Postal Service’s Approved Postal Provider network, which are operated by third parties and compliment the Postal Service’s own network by offering customers expanded retail access to postal products and services at convenient hours and locations.

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: 152 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 more than 31,000 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 42nd in the 2012 Fortune 500. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for seven years and the fourth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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