The National Association of Letter Carriers Union members collect more than 73 million pounds of food

BY PAUL TUCKER
THEUNIONNEWSSWB@AOL.COM
REGION, July 1st- The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Union in Washington, DC announced that despite the difficult economic times Americans donated a record 73.4 million pounds of non-perishable food in their annual Letter Carriers National Food Drive. The event is intended to restock community food banks and pantries throughout the nation.

The food was collected by letter carriers on May 9th as they delivered mail along their postal routes in over 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states and United States jurisdictions. It is the nation’s largest one-day effort to “Stamp Out Hunger.”

NALC President William Young expressed profound appreciation to the millions of Americans who left food by their mailboxes and the thousands of his members, rural carriers, and other postal employees and volunteers, many who are members of other unions, who collected, processed and delivered the donations to local food banks and pantries.

“This is an amazing testimony to the generosity of the American people even as they themselves struggle to make ends meet in these hard times. Our members take pride in being able to serve their postal customers and help them assist millions of needy Americans, including many working families, children and the elderly,” said Mr. Young.

Final results showed 73,414,533 pounds of non-perishable food were collected in the traditional event on the second Saturday in May, a slight increase over the previous record of 73.1 million pounds set in 2008. It was the sixth consecutive year above 70 million pounds and brought the total for the drive’s 17 years to over 982 million pounds.

Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 17 in Scranton, Branch 115 in Wilkes-Barre and Branch 162 in Pittston, participated in the event.