by Helping Harvest Fresh Food Bank
Photo by Calle Macarone on Unsplash
Saturday, May 11, is one of America’s great days of giving – the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Stamp Out Hunger® Food Drive. Letter carriers travel through the communities daily, often coming face-to-face with a sad reality for too many households experiencing hunger. Each year, on the second Saturday of May, letter carriers across the country collect non-perishable food donations from our customers. These donations go directly to local food pantries to provide food to people who need our help. The donations collected in Berks County will go to Helping Harvest Fresh Food Bank.
The Stamp Out Hunger® Food Drive brought in 97,373 pounds of food to Helping Harvest in 2023. There were 61 volunteers who came to the warehouse on the second Saturday in May, contributing 152.5 volunteer hours to help sort and package the donated food. If you are interested in volunteering for this great donation event on Saturday, May 11, please call Helping Harvest at 610-926-5802 ext. 220.
Over the course of its 30-year history, the drive has collected well over 1.9 billion pounds of food, thanks to a postal service universal delivery network that spans the entire nation, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The need for food donations is great. Currently, more than 44 million Americans are unsure where their next meal will come from. More than 13 million are children who feel hunger’s impact on their overall health and ability to perform in school. Nearly 5.5 million seniors over age 60 are food insecure, with many who live on fixed incomes often too embarrassed to ask for help.
Our food drive’s timing is crucial. Food banks and pantries often receive the majority of their donations during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons. By springtime, many pantries are depleted, entering the summer low on supplies at a time when many school breakfast and lunch programs are not available to children in need. Participating in this year’s Letter Carrier Stamp Out Hunger® Food Drive is simple. Just leave non-perishable food donations in a bag by your mailbox on Saturday, May 11, and your letter carrier will do the rest. Please help us in our fight to Stamp Out Hunger.
Helping Harvest Fresh Food Bank is the leading provider of food to people in need in Berks and Schuylkill Counties, PA. Helping Harvest delivers food to over 350 partners in Berks and Schuylkill County and last year provided over $17 million in food to over 140,000 residents in our community. Helping Harvest is a member of Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization.
