Letter carriers’ food drive helps pantries

This coming Saturday, May 14, will be the annual National Association of Letter Carriers food drive. This nationwide event, sponsored by the postal workers, allows us to leave food at our mailboxes for our local pantries. United Way is proud to be a national partner.

This year’s recipients will be Main Street Mission, Rowan Helping Ministries and the Salvation Army. All three are worthy agencies who feed the hungry. Volunteers from all three organizations will help sort the food and put it on trucks to take back to their pantries. Last year over 24,000 pounds was donated. It went a long way in getting food to the citizens of Rowan County who were in need of assistance.

Please help us by leaving canned good, dried beans and other non-perishable items at your mailbox this Saturday. Every household should receive a reminder postcard and bag this week to use for your donations. Simply leave it at your mailbox and your carrier will pick it up.

I would like to thank Kim Lane and Jamie Reynolds of the local Post Office for giving their time and energy to help make this event a success. Also to Dennis Sims who helps oversee our logistics and makes sure everyone stays safe.

Thank you to the people of Rowan County who have been so supportive of this effort over many years.

I hope you will continue to support those less fortunate by participating this Saturday.

— Jackie Harris

Salisbury

Harris is the associate director of the Rowan County United Way

Many grammatical errors in today’s newspapers

The writer is responding to a column by Bill Ward in the Saturday paper, “Don’t make ‘drug’ a habit.

Your letter in Saturday’s edition of the Salisbury Post, referencing correct grammar or the lack of, brought back a memory.  When I was a high school freshman at Boyden High School in the ‘50s, I was fortunate to be in Mr. Bob Greenland’s English class.

Mr. Greenland still resides in Salisbury.

He assigned us weekly homework of bringing in an article that contained a grammatical error found in our local paper. Of course we must be prepared to correct it. I remember searching the Post (the night before the class) for such errors but it seemed they were few and far between.  Not so today.

One of Mr. Greenland’s pet peeves was the incorrect usage of me and I. Today you hear so many speakers spout out “for my wife/husband and I,” or they gave it to she and I.” Another thing he drilled into our heads was that “none” requires a singular verb.  Don’t we hear and read so often “none of us were, are,” etc.  Remember, he said, none is actually “no one.” The incorrect usage is so prevalent today one almost feels guilty using the correct form.

I see and hear these mistakes daily, and I still cringe. My computer works very hard to correct my bad grammar.  Surely newspapers have much more sophisticated equipment than I, so why so many errors?

Anyway, thanks for the letter. Sorry I “drug” you into this.

— Edith Julian

Salisbury