National Letter Carriers’ Association Annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive The Best Ever

By Kaaren Valenta

The letter carriers’ most successful food drive ever was held in Newtown last Saturday to stock the Salvation Army food pantry operated by the town’s Social Services Department in Town Hall South.

“The most ever collected has been six tons of food and I’d say this year’s drive topped that by quite a bit,” said a visibly happy Ann Piccini, social services director.

Volunteers from the local churches, youth organizations, families, and individuals helped the local letter carriers collect food left next to mailboxes all over town and transport it to the conference room at Town Hall South where it was sorted and packed.

“The letter carriers brought me about 20 more bins at the end of the afternoon to hold all the donations,” Ms Piccini said. “My daughters [Katherine Piccini and Pamela Aversano] unloaded eight of those big bins. Two ladies came and stayed all day. In the afternoon, Lin Hertberg came with his soccer team and they worked two and a half hours. We had a lot of volunteers.”

At noon, Joanne Klopfenstein, social services caseworker, surveyed the piled of canned goods, cereal, pasta, and other donations. “I don’t think we’ve ever gotten this much this early,” she said.

“This is my second trip,” said letter carrier Anthony DeFranzo as he unloaded his postal service truck. “I’ve only done part of my route. I did have one jar of spaghetti sauce roll out of a mailbox and break when I opened the door, but otherwise everything has gone well.”

Residents had been asked to put nonperishable food, in unbreakable containers, next to their mailboxes for pickup by the letter carriers and the volunteers.

Several of the volunteers said they were impressed by how the donations were the heaviest in what could be considered the least affluent neighborhoods in town.

“These people know how important the food drive is,” one commented.

Some volunteers began collecting much earlier than the scheduled deliveries of the letter carriers and canvassed the routes several times to collect carloads of donations. Chuck Leety and Howard Bowles were picking up donations in the Taunton Hill and Dodgingtown areas, and stopped early in the day at one house where there were four bags of food covered with a protective plastic sheet next to the mailbox.

“We picked up the food, rolled up the plastic and put it into the newspaper holder,” Mr Leety said. “Later we drove the same route again and there was another bag by the mailbox at the same house.”

With the food was a note that said, ‘Sorry there is so little but someone took the four bags I put out this morning.”