Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive Breaks Record

by Susan Davis on 02/06/09 at 9:54 am

Delivering food to the hungr

The National Association of Letter Carriers announced that its annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive for 2009  broke a record  with 73.4 million pounds of non-perishables collected during its one-day campaign on May 9.  As the nation’s largest one-day effort to “Stamp Out Hunger,” it covered 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states and U.S. jurisdictions. 

The union’s West Coast Florida branch in St. Petersburg was the top collector at 1.7 million pounds of food. Coming in second was the Buffalo and Western New York branch.

NALC President William H. Young expressed appreciation to the millions of Americans who left food by their mailboxes and the thousands of postal employees and volunteers who collected, processed, and delivered the donations to local food banks and pantries.

“This is an amazing testimony to the generosity of the American people even as they themselves struggle to make ends meet in these hard times,” Young said. “Our members take pride in being able to serve their postal customers and help them assist millions of needy Americans, including many working families, children and the elderly.”

This was the sixth consecutive year that Stamp Out Hunger collected more than 70 million pounds of food and brought the total for the drive’s 17 years to over 982 million pounds of food collected.