PORTLAND – Postal customers in many Oregon and Southwest Washington communities are invited to get a jump on their holiday mailing schedules by placing their holiday cards and letters in blue collection boxes outside selected Post Offices on the next three Sundays, Dec. 9, 16 and 23.

Post Offices offering the bonus Sunday mail collections will have signs posted in their lobbies alerting customers to the bonus weekend mailing opportunities and noting the specific Sunday collection times at each location. Mail deposited at inside mail drops at these Post Offices will also be collected on Sundays.

These locations’ collection boxes are not typically collected on Sundays throughout the rest of the year.

The Postal Service also encourages mailers everywhere to send their holiday greetings on Saturdays, as well as the special three Sunday opportunities, in order to beat the usual rush of customers that visit Post Offices on Mondays during December.

Referring to the heavy holiday traffic expected on the next three Mondays, USPS Portland District Manager Kim Anderson said: “By using our collection boxes either on Saturdays or on these special Sunday mail collection days, our customers can get a head start on what we expect to be three of the busiest mailing days of the year at our Post Offices.

“Mail deposited at the specific collection boxes by the posted times on these three Sundays will be picked up, postmarked, processed and sent on its way Sunday night, getting a 24-hour jump on Monday’s heavy mail volumes,” Anderson said. “As always, we encourage our customers to mail early in the season to ensure their greetings arrive in time for the holiday.”

Several Post Offices in Oregon and Southwest Washington also offer 24-hour access to self-service kiosks that allow customers to purchase stamps or mail packages using a credit or debit card. Those mailings will be collected during the three bonus Sunday collections, as well. Self-service kiosk locations can be found online via the “Find Locations” link at www.usps.com.

Customers who need a ZIP Code, want to calculate postage or purchase postage online may do so at the Postal Service’s web site, www.usps.com. Postal information is also available by calling 1-800-ASK-USPS, and holiday mailing dates and tips are available at www.usps.com/cheer.

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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. In 2011, Oxford Strategic Consulting ranked the U.S. Postal Service number one in overall service performance of the posts in the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world. 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.

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