U.S. Postal Service workers are getting ready for the 24th annual National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive this Saturday.
Thousands of letter carriers in the Detroit metro area will join hundreds of thousands of their colleagues nationwide to collect non perishable items from homeowners to help those in need.
“When one in every five children in this country go hungry every day. When you have 49 million people not knowing where their next meal is coming from, it’s important,” said Sandy Laemmel, President of the Nation Association of Letter Carrier Branch 1.
“I mean, it’s unbelievable,” said letter carrier, Ben Dixon. “We live in America and like they say we throw away food, we throw away all of this disposable stuff but to have people not have food to eat, something that is a necessity: shelter, water, food, that’s something important.”
Union and non union USPS employees participate in the annual drive. Even management helps sort out all the goods including as cereal and canned food. Locally, everything will go to gleaners food bank.
“It’s from our heart,” said Laemmel. “It’s from our heart. We serve these people every day of the year this is one time we ask for something in return and our patrons are so generous.”
“During the summer time,” said Dixon. “People usually don’t give during that time. They think about the holidays and the cold but once it’s summer time they don’t really know people still need something to eat.”
The National Association of Letter Carriers wants you to know: all you have to do is give.
“We are willing to do the work all we have to do is get our patrons to set out their donations Saturday morning. We will pick it up,” said Laemmel.
You can place your non perishable items in grocery bags or boxes near your mailbox.
Last year local letter carriers collected about 1.3 million pounds of food.
