Goin’ Postal and USPS collect food for "Stamp Out Hunger"

Zephyrhills - On May 12 letter carriers in all 50 states and various U.S. jurisdictions will collect non-perishable food donations while they deliver mail and parcels along their routes.

The date marks the 15th Annual National Association Letter Carriers National Food Drive, an incredibly successful food drive that has collected and delivered over 765.5 million pounds of food for hungry families over the past 14 years.  In 2006 alone, the food drive netted over 70.5 million pounds of donated goods.  Within the Goin’ Postal chain, Alan and Gale Decker, owners of Goin’ Postal in Sebring collected a total of 2,755 pounds of food at their location in 2006, and many Goin’ Postal store owners each collected similar amounts of food at their stores.

Every year, the more than 245 Goin’ Postal store owners nationwide strive to improve the quality of life within their cities and towns nationwide by hosting Goin’ Postal’s unique grassroots Chain-Wide Community Involvement Activities on a monthly basis, by volunteering to help put on local events, and by putting some elbow grease into aiding those organizations, like the NALC, which are already conducting their own community improvement activities.

Those wishing to donate non-perishable food items to feed hungry local families may do so in one of two ways. You can put non-perishable food items in a sturdy carrying sack with strong handles for hanging on your mailbox or place it near your mail receptacle for your letter carrier to pick up. You may also bring your non-perishable food items to your local Goin’ Postal packing and shipping store.  The store owner will then give your donations to the NALC on May 12th.  Your local Goin’ Postal is located at 38439 5th Avenue (Main Street) in Downtown Zephyrhills, and is the store that gave birth to this nationwide franchise chain.  *This location will continue to collect food items all month long.

After May 12th, many Goin’ Postal stores will continue to collect food donations for the remainder of the month in order to collect and donate as much food as possible to local food banks, soup kitchens, shelters, senior citizen nutrition programs, foster parent associations, and other local groups that will benefit from these food donations.

America’s Second Harvest, one of the NALC Food Drive’s sponsors, is also assisted by Goin’ Postal store owners in November of each year, when all of the stores in the chain participate in DHL’s "Thanks for Giving Food Drive."  

Residents are encouraged to pick up a few extra non-perishable food items at the grocery store this week, and donate them for a great cause.

Photos by Ryan O'Reilly