o What: The nation’s largest single-day food drive.
o When: Saturday morning.
o How to help: Place nonperishable food in a plastic bag by your mailbox. If you miss the pickup, bring your donation to your nearest post office.
The nation’s largest single-day food drive is coming to your mailbox Saturday. More than 3,000 letter carriers in Southwest Washington and Oregon will join the National Association of Letter Carriers in its coast-to-coast effort to restock dwindling reserves at food banks everywhere.
You can help by leaving nutritious, nonperishable food out for collection early that morning.
The local (Clark County and Oregon) effort aims to collect 2 million pounds of food from postal customers and deliver that largesse to the Oregon Food Bank Network — which helps supply the Clark County Food Bank and its warehouse in Hazel Dell.
Last year’s local tally was 1.65 million pounds, and letter carriers across the nation collected more than 73.4 million pounds of food — a record.
That record is in keeping with the soaring need, according to the Oregon Food Bank Network. Food distributions have escalated to historic highs since 2008, according to an OFBN statement, with more than 240,000 people eating from emergency food boxes monthly.
“This drive is especially important during these difficult economic times when so many of our neighbors have lost their jobs, savings and homes,” said Oregon Food Bank Network executive director Rachel Bristol.
People whose daily work brings them to every neighborhood and every address in the nation see the need firsthand, according to letter carrier Darcy Nolan. The Letter Carriers Food Drive is “my proudest day as a letter carrier,” Nolan said.
Sometime this week, all postal customers should receive a yellow plastic bag with their mail delivery. To make a donation, fill that bag — or another sturdy bag — with nonperishable food and leave it by your mailbox first thing in the morning.
If you miss the pickup that day, don’t fret — just make a drop off at your local post office by May 12. Plus, Wells Fargo banking customers can donate at any Wells Fargo ATM by pushing the “donate to charity” button on the ATM screen.
Most-wanted items are canned meats and fish, canned or boxed meals (soup, chili, macaroni and cheese), canned or dried beans and peas, pasta, cereals, rice, canned fruits and juices, canned vegetables, baking mixes and cooking oils. Please don’t donate rusty or opened products, unlabeled products, glass, alcohol, homemade or noncommercial items, drink mixes or sodas.
Eight hundred Wells Fargo volunteers are expected to help out with the food drive in Oregon and Clark County.
