By Kathy Chaffin
kchaffin@salisburypost.com
Rowan County letter carriers will join postal workers throughout the nation Saturday in collecting non-perishable donations from homes while delivering mail as part of the 17th annual National Food Drive to Stamp Out Hunger.
Dean Fields, postmaster at the Salisbury Post Office, 605 East Innes St., encourages everyone who can to participate and help local food banks serving record numbers of struggling families.
“All of us are directly affected or know someone who is affected by our current economic conditions,” Fields said. “I urge you to dig deep and contribute to our food drive on Saturday. You can leave food in your mail box, hang it from your mail box or place it beside of the box.
“Our employees or volunteers will pick it up.”
Ron Bailey, food drive coordinator for Salisbury’s letter carriers, has set a goal locally of 22,000 pounds. That would exceed the all-time high of more than 20,000 pounds collected during the Stamp Out Hunger food drive two years ago.
Fields said all food collected in Rowan County is used in the county.
The donations collected by Salisbury’s letter carriers will go to Rowan Helping Ministries and The Salvation Army.
“You can rest assured that the food you donate will be put to good use feeding someone in need,” Fields said.
Sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers, Stamp Out Hunger is the largest, one-day food drive in the nation.
Carriers collected a record 73.1 million pounds of food in last year’s drive.
The drive is held annually on the second Saturday in May in more than 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
William H. Young, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said that even though the food drive has been very successful in the past, it’s crucial that people contribute even more this year.
“Millions and millions of families are suffering,” he said, “struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. More than ever, food banks, pantries and shelters need our help this year.
“As families count on them for support, they’re counting on us and we must not back off on our commitment.”
Young added that donations are particularly critical at this time since most school lunch programs are suspended during the summer months, requiring millions of children to find alternate sources of nutrition.
More than 125 million postcards, sponsored by the Campbell Soup Company and the U.S. Postal Service’s Priority Mail, were to be mailed to postal customers to remind them of the drive.
Public Service Announcements featuring movie and television stars David Arquette and Courteney Cox, as well as the Harlem Globetrotters, are also being made available throughout the country.
Other co-sponsors of the drive with the letter carriers’ union are Feeding America, formerly known as America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s food bank network; the United Way of America and its local United Ways; and the AFL-CIO.
Contact Kathy Chaffin at 704-797-4249.