Feeding others — 05/09/08

May 08, 2008 03:42 pm

— Looking for a quick and easy way to help feed the hungry? Just leave a few cans or boxes of non-perishable food by the mailbox Saturday morning. Before the end of the day, postal workers will help see that that food is in the hands of local agencies that help feed the hungry. In what has become a tradition on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, area members of the National Association of Letter Carriers again will be participating in the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.
Now in its 16th year, much of the success of the food drive is because of its simplicity. Donors leave the food in sacks or boxes near their mailboxes on Saturday morning, and letter carriers pick up the donated food as they travel their regular routes that day. At the end of their routes, the letter carriers take the donated food to a distribution point.
In Ashland, that distribution center in recent years has been the Transportation Center on Greenup Avenue. There, volunteers with River Cities Harvest — with the help of teens from the Ashland Group Home — take the food from the latter carriers and immediately load it into the vehicles of non-profit agencies that feed the hungry. Those agencies include the Community Kitchen, the Boyd County Food Pantry in Cannonsburg, Hillcrest-Bruce Mission, Safe Harbor, Shelter of Hope and the Salvation Army. By late afternoon, not only has all the food been collected, but it has been distributed. It is an efficient operation organized by Jim Fout of River Cities Harvest. In Greenup County, Helping Hands distributes the donated food.
Michael Burchett, secretary of Local 745 of the NALC, said letter carriers in Boyd and Greenup counties picked up about 32,000 pounds — or 16 tons — of food. About half of that was distributed in Boyd County.
Non-perishable food can also be brought to the post offices in Ashland, Russell, Argillite, Catlettsburg and Flatwoods on Saturday. Huntington area letter carriers also are participating in the food drive.
Spiraling costs of food have made it more difficult for non-profit organizations to purchase all the food needed to feed the hungry. While most of us have also felt the effects of higher food prices on our wallets, many of us usually have a few cans or boxes of food that we can donate without straining our budgets. Saturday provides an excellent opportunity for area residents to feed the hungry without going any further than their mailboxes.