BRATTLEBORO — Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) are once again gearing up to “carry” out the largest one-day food drive in the U.S., the 24th annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.
On Saturday, May 14, letter carriers and their food drive partners, including members of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, will pick up donated food as they deliver your mail and make sure that it gets to a local food shelf.
Traditionally held on the second Saturday in May, Stamp Out Hunger has collected more than a billion pounds of food for the nation's food shelves during the past two decades in more than 10,000 cities and towns around the United States.
Last year in Brattleboro, 3,507 pounds of food were collected, according to Viv Woodland, a member of NALC Branch 37 in Brattleboro and coordinator of the food drive in the Brattleboro area.
“That may sound like a lot, but it only averages out to the amount of food that 2.4 people, let's say two adults and a child, will eat in the year between our annual drives,” she wrote in an email to The Commons. “I think that the Brattleboro community can take care of more than one small family, and I'd like to see our collection numbers go up to prove it.”
Woodland is challenging area postal customers to be as generous as possible.
“Each can, each box of cereal makes an impact; that's the glory of the Stamp Out Hunger food drive,” she said. “Rarely does a single household donate more than a bag full, but because so many do at least that much, this drive makes an enormous difference for struggling folks across the country, each of whom is someone's neighbor.”
As she sees it, “If each person who walks into a grocery store this week thought about picking up a few extra items to donate, we'd be in great shape. What non-perishables do you usually purchase for your family? I bet someone else would enjoy the same things.”
The top requested non-perishable food items are cereal, pasta, pasta sauce, rice, canned fruits and vegetables, canned meals (such as soups, chili, and pasta), fruit juices, peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, canned protein (tuna, chicken, and turkey), and beans (canned or dry).
To participate, Woodland said, people can fill a grocery bag with nonperishable food items, avoiding those in glass containers, and place the bag by their mailbox, or bring it in to your local post office.
Monetary donations also are welcome, she said, and checks can be made out to Vermont Foodbank.