May 12 is 20th NALC Food Drive

Planning for this year’s “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive is well under way.

May 12 will mark an important milestone for the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive.  It will be the 20^th anniversary of the largest one-day food drive in the nation.

NALC Branch 1690 is having a food drive kick-off on Thursday, May 3, at 9:00 am at the Holy Name of Jesus Church at 345 S Military Trail in West Palm Beach. Feeding South Florida and the church will be providing food for the hungry during this event.  At 10:00 am on Tuesday, May 8, NALC Branch 2550 is having a kick-off awareness event in the lobby of the Fort Lauderdale Main Office, 1900 West Oakland Park Blvd in Fort Lauderdale.  Both events will be off-the-clock activities for employees.

Feeding America, USPS, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), the National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA), and the Campbell Soup Company are among the food drive’s sponsors.

The Postal Service is encouraging full support of this effort and urging employees and other customers to place a sturdy bag containing non-perishable foods next to their mailboxes prior to regular mail delivery on Saturday, May 12.  Once again, Publix will provide designated plastic bags for South Florida city and rural letter carriers to deliver to residential addresses the week leading up to the drive.

Postal employees and customers have contributed more than one billion pounds of non-perishable food since the program began.  The drive has become so successful over the years in more than 10,000 cities and towns that it is now part of the fabric of fighting hunger in America. Food banks literally circle the second Saturday in May on their calendars, knowing that carriers will again fill their shelves.

Last year letter carriers collected 70.2 million pounds of canned goods, making the 2011 “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive the eighth consecutive drive surpassing 70 million pounds.  Let’s support this year’s campaign  and make it a record breaker!

A Brief History
The NALC National Food Drive is the outgrowth of a tradition of community service exhibited repeatedly by members of the letter carriers union over the years. These carriers, who go into neighborhoods in every town six days a week, have always been involved when something needed to be done, whether it be collecting funds for a charity like the Muscular Dystrophy Association, watching over the elderly through the Carrier Alert program, assisting the American Red Cross during time of disaster, or rescuing victims of fires, crime, and other mishaps.

For many years, a number of branches had collected food for the needy as part of their community service effort. Discussions were held by the NALC, U.S. Postal Service and AFL-CIO Community Services Department to explore a coordinated effort. A pilot drive was held in 10 cities in October, 1991, and it proved so successful that work began immediately on making it a nationwide effort.

Input from food banks and pantries suggested that late spring would be the best time since by then most food banks in the country start running out of donations received during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods.

A revamped drive was organized for May 15, 1993—the second Saturday in May—with a goal of having at least one NALC branch in each of the 50 states participating. The result was astounding. More than 11 million pounds of food was collected—a one-day record in the United States—involving more than 220 union branches.

From Alaska to Florida and Maine to Hawaii, letter carriers did double duty—delivering mail and picking up donations. It just grew and grew from that point.

In 2010, the food drive surpassed the 1 billion pound park in total food collected over its history.

Source:  NALC