Way of St. Joseph County Encourages Support For National Association of Letter Carriers' Food Drive

May 4, 2011 - PRLog -- (South Bend) United Way of St. Joseph County encourages community members to donate a sturdy bag of non-perishable items (canned foods, pasta, rice, cereal, laundry soap, dish soap, shampoo, etc.), leaving it next to their mailboxes prior to mail delivery, to be collected by letter carriers as they deliver mail along their postal routes Saturday, May 14, 2011.

Letter Carriers' Food Drive is an initiative of “Stamp Out Hunger,” a national partnership between NALC, the U.S. Postal Service, United Way, the AFL-CIO, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, Campbell, Feeding America, Valpak, AARP, Uncle Bob’s Self Storage and, locally, The Food Bank of Northern Indiana. The nation’s 230,000 active letter carriers will take the donations to local food banks, pantries and shelters. In St. Joseph County, letter carriers will collect the donations and take them to the Food Bank of Northern Indiana, a United Way partner agency.

Each year, millions of Americans join the effort to help meet the needs of nearly 50 million Americans who live in families that lack sufficient food.  One in seven adults and nearly one-quarter of all children are hungry and not receiving the basic nutrition they need. Moving into the summer months, 22 million students are at risk of going hungry when the school year ends.  For many children, school meals are the only complete and nutritious meals they eat.

Locally, in 2009, 17.4% of St. Joseph County's population did not know where their next meal was coming from. If every home would give something, our community’s goal of 200,000 lbs. could be reached.

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