Raleigh, NC – Raleigh’s newest Post Office facility is ready for its big introduction to the world.

The Lighthouse Food Mart Contract Postal Unit (CPU), located at 1298 Buck Jones Road, Raleigh, NC will celebrate its Grand Opening on today, Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11 am, with a special ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11:30 am. Raleigh Acting Postmaster Cheryl Picard will be present with Chamber of Commerce, business and postal leaders to commemorate the occasion.

The Lighthouse CPU is now open seven days a week – Monday – Friday, 6 am – 10 pm, Saturday 8 am – 10 pm and Sunday 8 am – 8 pm. It is one of 21 CPUs in the Triangle Area, all serving as convenient alternatives to traditional Post Offices.

“This office will help to increase convenience and access to postal services for customers unable to travel to the main Post Office,” said Picard, who oversees the Lighthouse CPU. “A full line of postal products and services are available at the new CPU including postage stamps, Express Mail® service, Priority Mail® service, special services, packaging products, and much more. We are very excited for the residents of Raleigh and the Triangle communities at large.”

The Postal Service has re-engineered the entire Contract Unit Postal program to better answer the needs of postal customers nationwide. “The Postal Service is continuously tasked with finding smarter and more efficient ways to reach our customers,” said Picard. “Our CPUs, our Automated Postal Centers (APC), our online services at www.usps.com, and our face value stamps at major retailers (Food Lion, Harris Teeter, CVS, etc) throughout the city and state are allowing us to change the way we do business, to make us available to more people 24 hours a day.”

This event is free and open to the public. For information, call the CPU at 919-380-3373. For a complete listing of Triangle-area CPUs, see chart below.

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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, 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.