Postal Food Drive Critical To Local Pantry

By John Voket

Newtown Social Services Director Ann Piccini remembers the days before the annual spring National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) food drive, which infuses the local distribution center with upward of 60 percent of its annual supplies.

“Before the postal carriers started this collection, our shelves would be bare by mid-April,” she said. “In tough years we would have to go out and buy food to fill the shelves by as early as the beginning of March.”

That is when the supplies of nonperishable items left over from generous holiday season donations would begin to run out, she explained.

But now, thanks to local letter carriers and their volunteer helpers, combined with the good-hearted outpouring of hundreds of bags left beside mail boxes the Saturday before Mother’s Day, the Newtown Food Pantry seldom, if ever, has to buy its own supplies anymore.

This year’s 15th annual food drive — aptly committed to “stamp out hunger” — is set for May 12. Besides the need to have residents leave bags of donated food beside their postal boxes that morning, the Social Services office needs drivers to assist letter carriers handling pickups and transportation, as well as volunteers to help sort and shelve food at the pantry throughout the afternoon.

According to the NALC, the organization’s 15th annual National Food Drive is the largest one-day activity of its kind in the nation. Carriers collected 70.5 million pounds of food in the 2006 drive, the third consecutive year the effort has exceeded 70 million pounds.

The food will be collected in more than 10,000 communities by nearly 1,500 local branches of the postal union, along with rural carriers and other volunteers. Donations will be delivered to food banks, pantries, and shelters that serve the area where the donations are collected.

Since its inception in 1993, the nationwide drive has collected and delivered more than three-quarters of a billion pounds of food — 765.5 million pounds — to help hungry families.

Social Services case manager JoAnne Klopfenstein asks anyone with a vehicle available for a few pickup routes, or any individual, family, or group looking to give back a little to the community by helping sort, to contact her office at 270-4330.

“We’re still facing a steady demand for the food pantry,” Ms Klopfenstein said. “Between requests for food assistance, and help paying utility bills we can’t keep up.”

Ms Piccini believes the office currently helps more than 175 households in town make ends meet, thanks to the generosity of food donors, especially during the May 12 letter carriers event.

“This is our big push,” Ms Klopfenstein added. Thanks to the influx of nonperishables, the food pantry has not been forced to limit services or access to anyone qualifying for the service.

Besides the immediate need of hungry families locally, Ms Piccini said she is hard at work soliciting donations to help send local youngsters to either a summerlong Parks and Rec camp in town, or weeklong sleep-away stays at the Salvation Army’s Camp ConnRi in Ashford.

As a board member of the local Salvation Army service unit, Ms Piccini is able to help applicants for the overnight camp fast-track applications. And the price is right, if she can match enough donors to kids who want to go.

“One week of Salvation Army camp is just $35, either paid by the parent or guardian, or a donor. The rest is covered by the Salvation Army and its corporate donors across the state,” she said.

Ms Piccini said the local camp experience is perfect for working moms who need some time during the summer months, and the local rec camp’s 9 am to 3 pm schedule is close to matching the school day schedule.

The cost to send each child to the local six-week program in town is $435 per child, and the Social Services camp scholarship fund will pay half for any qualifying child, as long as the funds are available.