Letter carriers collect food Saturday

Letter carriers will stop by to pick up more than just ordinary cards and letters this Saturday.

They’ll be working to feed the hungry by collecting food across their normal delivery routes. Helping is as easy as leaving a donation of nonperishable food on your doorstep.

The National Association of Letter Carriers annual food drive is Saturday. Donations of food collected during this drive benefit the Great Falls Community Food Bank. According to Shaun Tatarka, fund development coordinator for the Food Bank, the Letter Carriers’ Food Drive is one of the most important annual events to feed the hungry in Great Falls.

“It’s one of our most important drives of the year,” Tatarka said. “Along with the Boy Scouts’ drive in April, we really count on the Letter Carriers’ drive to help us get through the summer months when we see our donations drop a little.”

Last year, Great Falls’ letter carriers brought in nearly 13,000 pounds of food during their spring food drive. The Great Falls Community Food Bank is hopeful this year’s drive will exceed that total.

Great Falls residents are asked to leave a nonperishable food donation on their doorstep before 8:30 a.m. Letter carriers and other volunteers will collect the food for the Great Falls Community Food Bank.

The NALC National Food Drive developed from a tradition of community service established by members of the letter carriers union. For many years, several branches had collected food for the needy as part of their community service effort.

Eventually, the NALC, U.S. Postal Service and AFL-CIO Community Services Department held discussions to explore a coordinated effort. A pilot drive was held in 10 cities in October 1991, and it proved so successful that work began immediately on making it a nationwide effort.

Input from food banks and pantries suggested that late spring would be the best time since by then most food banks in the country start running out of donations received during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods.

A revamped drive was organized for May 15, 1993 — the second Saturday in May — with a goal of having at least one NALC branch in each of the 50 states participating. More than 11 million pounds of food was collected — a one-day record in the United States — involving more than 220 union branches.

In 2010, the food drive surpassed the 1 billion pound mark in total food collected over its history.