Ventura County Letter Carriers Gear Up for “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive to Benefit FOOD Share

April 25, 2013 - PRLog -- (VENTURA COUNTY, Calif.) – On Saturday, May 11, Ventura County letter carriers will embark on a charitable postal route that entails much more than just picking up outgoing mail.

On this day, hundreds of letter carriers will collect residents’ food donations in support of the nation’s largest single-day food drive, Stamp Out Hunger, to benefit their local food banks. More than 10,000 post offices across the nation are partaking in this annual drive which has collected more than 1.1 billion pounds of food since it began 21 years ago. Last year, Ventura County’s regional food bank, FOOD Share, received more than 150,000 pounds of food as a result of the single-day food drive.

Ventura County residents are asked to leave non-perishable, protein-rich foods in a bag next to their mailboxes for postal carriers to pick up while on their daily route. The donations will then be sorted by participating post offices before being delivered to FOOD Share’s warehouse distribution center in Oxnard.

Corporate sponsors of the local event, Farmers Insurance and Montecito Bank &Trust, will team up with the National Association of Letter Carriers to provide funds, resources and company volunteers to support FOOD Share’s missions of feeding, nourishing and educating the hungry of Ventura County.

Hunger is on the rise in Ventura County as the regional food bank has seen a 58.8 percent increase in demand since 2010. FOOD Share currently helps feed more than 74,500 people each month, distributing the food collected through 162 nonprofit partners throughout the county. The majority of people FOOD Share serves are able to provide 85 percent of their own meals; FOOD Share’s goal is to close that 15 percent gap.

“Together we can close the gap one neighborhood at a time”, said Bonnie Weigel, FOOD Share president and CEO.  “If every resident and business contributes to our hungry friends each month, we could eliminate hunger in Ventura County. Even the smallest donation can have a huge impact. For every $1 donated, we are able to provide $5 worth of food to those in need.”

One-Day Food Drive details:
When:  Saturday, May 11, 2013
Where:  Postal routes throughout Oxnard, Ventura and Thousand Oaks, or drop off a donation to a participating postal collection center:

•   East Ventura Post Office, 41 S. Wake Forrest Dr., Ventura                  
•   Ventura Main Post Office, 675 E. Santa Clara St., Ventura
•   Oxnard Main Post Office, 1961 N. “C” St., Oxnard                          
•   Thousand Oaks Main Post Office, 3435 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks

What to donate: Non-perishable food items, such as canned soup, vegetables, meats, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, pasta, rice, beans and cereal.

Why: Hunger is increasing at an alarming rate in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (USDA) reported in November 2011 that more than 50 million Americans, including more than 8.6 million children (more than 1 out of 6), are food insecure.  

Photo Cut Line: Farmers Insurance volunteers help out during 2012 Stamp Out Hunger.

About FOOD Share:
The food bank distributing millions of pounds of food each year to those in need throughout Ventura County, FOOD Share collects and receives food year-round, distributing through more than 150 pantry partner agencies throughout Ventura County, including Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Oak View, Ojai, Oxnard, Santa Paula, Simi Valley, Somis, Thousand Oaks, and Ventura.

FOOD Share provides food to more than 74,500 people each month countywide through its partner agencies and multiple programs. Programs include the Senior Brown Bag that provides supplemental nutrition to nearly 2,000 low income seniors, home delivered meals and supplemental groceries through the Oxnard and Ventura Senior Nutrition Programs and, the Kids’ Farmers’ Markets, offering nutrition education, healthy recipe preparation and taste testing and a farmers’ market free fresh produce “shopping experience.”

In 2011, FOOD Share partnered with Ventura County’s Human Services Agency to provide expanded CalFresh enrollment assistance. CalFresh, formerly called food stamps, is the largest federal nutrition assistance program that provides supplemental nutrition assistance to eligible Ventura County residents.

For more information: call (805) 983-7100 or go to http://www.foodshare.com.

About Farmers Insurance:
Farmers Insurance Group of Companies is a leading U.S. insurer group of automobiles, homes and small businesses and also provides a wide range of other insurance and financial services products. Farmers Insurance is proud to serve more than 10 million households with more than 20 million individual policies across all 50 states through the efforts of over 50,000 exclusive and independent agents and nearly 24,000 employees.

The Farmers Exchanges are three reciprocal insurers (Farmers Insurance Exchange, Fire Insurance Exchange and Truck Insurance Exchange), including their subsidiaries and affiliates, owned by their policyholders.  Farmers Group, Inc., along with its subsidiaries, manages the non-claims insurance operations of the Farmers Exchanges.  Farmers Group, Inc. is wholly owned by the Zurich Insurance Group. For more information about Farmers, visit its Web site at www.farmers.com or at www.Facebook.com/FarmersInsurance.

About Montecito Bank & Trust:
Montecito Bank & Trust, an S Corporation, is a locally owned community bank founded in 1975, and proudly celebrating its 38th anniversary. It is known for its ongoing support of the community through unique giving programs such as Community Dividends® and Anniversary GrantsSM.  The bank has branch offices in Westlake Village, Ventura, Carpinteria, Montecito, Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Solvang.  The bank offers a variety of competitive deposit and lending solutions for businesses and consumers including consumer loans, business loans and lines of credit, SBA loans, credit cards, merchant services, online and mobile banking, and cash management.  Our Wealth Management Division, located in Montecito, Solvang and Ventura, provides full investment management as well as trust and estate services for all of the bank’s branch office markets.