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National Association of Letter Carriers “Help Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive
The annual National Association of Letter Carriers “Help Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive is held each May on the Saturday before Mother’s Day. This food drive is held in every state in our nation, coordinated through the local letter carriers’ unions. This food drive is one of the easiest for donors to participate in because one can literally leave your donated non-perishable food in a bag by your mail box. However not so easy for our letter carriers!
The work on this drive actually begins for letter carriers earlier in the week when, in addition to the regular mail delivery, they deliver reminder post cards to mail boxes all along their route. Later in the week, usually Thursday or Friday, they delivered paper sacks with a reminder printed on it. Saturday of that week is even busier for your letter carriers, who still delivers the mail as usual that day, but also picks up the donated food left by the mailbox. Each letter carrier coordinates with their home post office for pickups. In turn, an employee stationed at the post office makes sure the food is gathered, and then coordinates with the food bank to ensure that the food arrives at the food bank. A lo-o-ong, tiring day for postal workers, but so-o worth it to those families and individuals who benefit from the donations! To top it off, some of the letter carriers came by the food bank after their routes that day and help process the donations, providing several hours of volunteer service!
This year was the most successful drive in many years in the Odessa-Midland and Ft. Stockton area, with over 52,000 lbs of food donated!!! This more than doubled the number of pounds donated last year, at approximately 22,000 lbs. Part of the credit goes to the use of the paper sack reminders that letter carriers delivered to mail boxes during the days before the drive, which were not new to many food banks, but a first time for us.
We can never say enough good things about our local letter carriers – who not only make sure we get our mail come rain or shine, but also give back to their communities during this wonderful, essential food drive.
LETTER CARRIERS, THANK YOU FOR CARING!!
THANK YOU, ECISD!!
Summer can be the most wonderful time of year – or not….especially if you don’t have food to eat. Too often, families depend on the school breakfasts and lunches for their children to eat. When school is out for the summer or for holidays, these meals are not available, and family budgets suffer more than ever. When incomes are limited, decisions on where the dollars go must be made: Rent or food? Medicine or food? Clothes or food? Electricity or food?
To help those in our local community through an especially difficult time of year, each year in the spring students in schools in the Ector County Independent School District conduct the annual CANS FOR KIDS Food Drive. The food collected will help feed kids during the summer when they are not in school. The drive is coordinated through the ECISD Food Service Department, who provides really neat prizes to the participating schools, classes, and individual students bringing in the most cans of food! Even the lunchroom workers kick in with cash donations to the food bank!! Prizes have included bicycles, computers, iPods, and other really neat gifts!
This year, the students collected more than 18,000 lbs of food!! This will make a tremendous difference to those families who depend on the West Texas Food Bank and our agencies – to help them feed their families until school begins again!
So again, we say THANK YOU, ECISD students, the Food Service Department, and the Odessa School Nutrition Association – for caring!!
