{"id":7798,"date":"2014-06-17T16:29:14","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T21:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=7798"},"modified":"2014-06-17T16:29:14","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T21:29:14","slug":"successful-results-for-letter-carriers-2014-annual-food-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2014\/06\/17\/successful-results-for-letter-carriers-2014-annual-food-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Successful Results for Letter Carriers’ 2014 Annual Food Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Successful Results for Letter Carriers’ 2014 Annual Food Drive<\/strong>
\nAnother Excellent Effort Helps Americans and Communities in Time of Slow Economy, Natural Disasters<\/em><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON,\u00a0June 17, 2014\u00a0\/PRNewswire-USNewswire\/ — The annual food drive of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) collected almost 73 million pounds of food to help restock food banks, pantries and shelters around the country \u2013 an impressive result made all the more necessary by the slow-paced economy recovery and recent natural disasters.<\/p>\n

The effort on\u00a0Saturday, May 10, gathered 72.5 million pounds of food \u2013 the 11th\u00a0consecutive year \u00a0\u00a0 the NALC drive has surpassed 70 million pounds of food collected. Several local NALC branches still are compiling their figures. \"2014-food-drive\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This year’s results bring the total to more than 1.3 billion pounds since the national drive began in 1992.<\/p>\n

“This demonstrates the value of the unique postal network, which goes to 151 million addresses six days a week,” NALC President\u00a0Fredric Rolando\u00a0said. “It also shows the strong connection between letter carriers and the communities they serve \u2013 a bond that serves the nation well.”<\/p>\n

The nation’s largest single-day food drive, the NALC effort is held annually on the second Saturday in May in 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the\u00a0District of Columbia,\u00a0Puerto Rico, the\u00a0Virgin Islands\u00a0and Guam.\u00a0 From major metropolitan areas to small rural towns, residents put out non-perishable food donations on that day, which letter carriers collect as they deliver mail along their postal routes.<\/p>\n

“Letter carriers see first-hand the needs in the communities where we work, and we’re honored to be able to help people in need by leading an effort that brings out the best in so many Americans,” President Rolando said.<\/p>\n

Hunger affects about 49 million people around the country, including millions of children and senior citizens. Pantry shelves filled up through winter-holiday generosity often are bare by late spring. And, with most school meal programs suspended during summer months, millions of children must find alternate sources of nutrition.<\/p>\n

“The Postal Service’s universal network makes it possible for us to provide this critically needed assistance,” NALC food drive coordinator\u00a0Pam Donato\u00a0said. “So, too, do the many groups who help.”<\/p>\n

Carriers brought the food to local food banks, pantries or shelters, including many affiliated with Feeding America, which was a national partner in the drive, as were United Way, AARP Drive to End Hunger, Publix, Campbell Soup Co., the U.S. Postal Service, National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, the AFL-CIO, Valpak, Valassis and Uncle Bob’s Self Storage.<\/p>\n

Among the many local volunteer groups that helped the nation’s 175,000 letter carriers were the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, National Guard units, American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, Boy\/Girl Scouts, various student groups, local Rotary Clubs, local and state AARP groups and local United Way volunteers.<\/p>\n

Photos for this year’s food drive are available at the Flickr photo album:\u00a0https:\/\/flic.kr\/s\/aHsjXtvEXq<\/p>\n

The 280,000-member NALC represents letter carriers across the country employed by the U.S. Postal Service, along with retired letter carriers. Founded by Civil War veterans in 1889, the NALC is among the country’s oldest labor unions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Successful Results for Letter Carriers’ 2014 Annual Food Drive Another Excellent Effort Helps Americans and Communities in Time of Slow Economy, Natural Disasters WASHINGTON,\u00a0June 17, 2014\u00a0\/PRNewswire-USNewswire\/ — The annual food drive of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) collected almost 73 million pounds of food to help restock food banks, pantries and shelters around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nalc-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7799,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798\/revisions\/7799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}