Help Woonsocket Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger May 12

Woonsocket letter carrier Don Gaulin of North Smithfield will be on the look out for pickups as well when he delivers the mail May 12 — food donations.

Letter carriers in RI and across the nation will join forces in the country’s largest single-day food drive that Saturday, “Stamp Out Hunger,” a cooperative effort of the U.S. Postal Service and the National Association of Letter Carriers. Gaulin has been a volunteer coordinator for the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive for the last 17 years.

All food collected in the Ocean State will be donated to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. The donations will help to feed more than 60,000 people who depend on the Food Bank’s statewide network of emergency food programs to meet their basic food needs. A third of the people served by the Food Bank are children under the age of 18.

“Children, seniors and families struggling to get back on their feet are really depending on their neighbors’ generosity in this annual food drive,” said Andrew Schiff, Chief Executive Officer of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. “This major effort reflects the letter carriers’ commitment to the communities in which they live and work. Every can and every box of healthy food will help a Rhode Islander in need.”

Residents are asked to leave a sturdy bag containing non-perishable food near the mailbox next Saturday morning. Most-needed items include canned soup, canned vegetables, pasta, rice, canned beans, and healthy cereals. Letter carriers will collect these food donations as they deliver the mail and deliver them to a central location, where they will be collected by the food bank.

Reminder postcards will be delivered to households the week before the drive.

Other partners supporting the Stamp Out Hunger food drive include Feeding America (the national network of food banks), Campbell Soup Company, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, Valpak, United Way, AFL-CIO, Uncle Bob’s Self-Storage and AARP. 

For more information on the food drive, visit www.helpstampouthunger.com. For information on the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, visit www.rifoodbank.org or call 401-942-6325 Ext. 213.