Help Stamp Out Hunger, Saturday

By Shannon Hicks

The 19th Annual National Association of Letters Carriers (NALC) Postal Food Drive will be conducted Saturday, May 14. This drive is a major supplier of food to the Newtown Salvation Army Food Pantry that is located in the office of Newtown Social Services, 3 Main Street.

“This food drive has been great. It has kept food on our shelves during the summer many years,” Newtown Social Services Director Ann Piccini said Tuesday morning. “Before this, in summer months, we’d have nothing on the shelves.”

Residents can help make the food drive a success in a number of ways.

The easiest thing to do is to leave a bag of nonperishable food items by your mailbox as early as possible Saturday morning — and remind your neighbors to do the same. Check the cans and boxes to be sure that they are unopened and not expired. Baby and pet food is also accepted.

While postal employees will be collecting some of the food, the drive usually brings in so many donations that additional help is needed to collect the donations. Newtown Social Services Director Ann Piccini is very hands-on with the food drive, having done a number of collection runs in her personal car in the past.

“I actually had one woman chase after me one year, when she thought I was stealing the food,” Ms Piccini said Tuesday morning, laughing. “She came after me in her car and started to yell at me.”

She came up with a solution after that uncomfortable encounter.

“Many cars will have signs or notices on them to let homeowners know that they are with us, that they are part of the food collection team,” she added.

The food collection will happen rain or shine. In the event of rain, residents can double bag their donations especially if they plan on leaving boxes of food that might be damaged due to rain or moisture. If they don’t want to leave donations outside, residents are also welcome to visit the US Post Office on Commerce Road. A large collection box will be placed in the lobby for the food drive. PO Box customers are also invited to drop off donations in the collection box.

A second way to help is to volunteer to drive a designated route to pick up the bags that have been left by the mailboxes. Pickup begins around 10 am and takes two hours or less. It works best as a two-person job with a driver and a passenger to grab the bags. Social Services can help pair up individuals who want to be a collection team if necessary.

Sorting is the third way to help. After the food is delivered to the Social Services office, volunteers age 12 and up are needed to help unload the cars and sort the food. Volunteers are asked to work at least one hour, but are welcome to stay all day.

This is an excellent community service opportunity. Social Services provides pizza, snacks, and cold drinks for volunteers throughout the day.

“Many volunteers return each year, and we hope that many new faces will join the fun this year,” Ms Piccini in a letter printed in The Letter Hive in the May 6, 2011, issue of The Newtown Bee.

To volunteer or for additional information call Social Services at 203-270-4330.

“Hopefully this year we’ll get a lot of donations,” Ms Piccini said this week. “We could really use it.”

More than 1,500 NALC branches from every state, involving more than 10,000 cities and towns, will help stock community food banks, pantries and shelters for the summer months.

More than 1 billion pounds of food donations have been collected by letter carriers since NALC launched its Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive in 1993, with a record 77.1 million pounds picked up last year alone. The NALC collection is the largest single-day drive to help families fight hunger in America.