Place non-perishable food items in a bag near your mailbox early Saturday morning May 10 and your letter carrier will pick it up. Food collected will be distributed to local emergency foodshelves by Second Harvest Heartland.
The local food drive is part of a nationwide effort by the National Association of Letter Carriers. NALC’s annual “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive is the nation’s largest one-day food drive.
This year, the goal is to collect 1.3 million pounds of food in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, reported Samantha Hartwig, regional food drive coordinator for NALC Branch 9 in Minneapolis.
Hartwig, Coon Rapids, has been a NALC member for 10 years and food drive coordinator for five years.
“Thursday, May 8, people should be looking in their mailbox for a blue plastic bag,” Hartwig advised. You can use that bag for your donated food items. “It doesn’t get any easier,” she said. “It’s a great cause.”
“If everybody donated just one item, we could easily break 1.3 million pounds,” she said.
“All the food stays local and it will stock the foodshelves for the next six months,” Hartwig said.
Now is an important time for the food drive, Hartwig noted, because school soon will be out for the summer and many needy children who currently may get breakfast and lunch at school will be at risk of missing meals.
“If you don’t want to donate a bag of food, you can go to TCF Bank and make a financial contribution and TCF will match up to $25,000,” Hartwig continued.
Letter carriers will bring the food they collect along their routes May 10 to waiting semi-trailers at selected Cub Foods locations.
Right: Letter carrier Jim Grage collecting donated food in south Minneapolis last May during NALC’s “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive.
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