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Published May 09, 2008 12:24 am - Transcript Staff Writer Local coordinators of Saturday's letter carriers food drive are asking postal custom... Letter carriers get ready for Saturday's annual food drive The Norman Transcript Transcript Staff Writer
Local coordinators of Saturday's letter carriers food drive are asking postal customers to contribute to the largest one-day food drive in the nation. "When I think of kids going to sleep hungry at night, it makes me want to do more to help," said Norman postal employee Larry Hayes. Locally, Hayes said mail carriers collected approximately 18,000 pounds of non-perishable food items last year. Nationwide, letter carriers represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers (AFL-CIO), with the help of rural carriers, volunteers and other postal employees, collected more than 70 million pounds of food designated to the needy by postal customers. "We couldn't do it without the post office's support," Hayes said. Carriers are asking postal customers to leave "a couple of cans of food, beans, rice or cereal" in a bag or box, and to "just leave them on the ground, under the mailbox," Hayes said. Letter carriers will collect non-perishable food items -- canned meat, fish, soup and cereals, pasta and rice -- and deliver them to local community food banks, pantries and shelters. Since its inception in 1993, the nationwide drive has collected and delivered over three-quarters of a billion pounds of food -- 836 million pounds -- to help feed hungry families. Officials say the summer months are a particularly critical time for millions of children whose school lunch programs are suspended until fall and their families must find alternate sources of nutrition. "Letter carriers see these families every day as they deliver the mail," said Postmaster General John E. Potter. "This food drive is one way we can help alleviate their plight and we encourage our postal patrons to participate by leaving donations by their mailbox May 10." Co-sponsors of the drive are the U.S. Postal Service, Campbell Soup Company, Cox Target Media-Valpak, the United Way of America and its local United Ways, the AFL-CIO, and America's Second Harvest food bank network. Tom Blakey 366-3540 tblakey@normantranscript.com 
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