Vinton Postmaster Tamika Pippin reports that 11,782 pounds of food were collected locally on Saturday, May 12, during the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC). That doesn’t include additional food that came in throughout the next week, some collected by schools and community organizations.

was the 26th annual event and the nation’s largest single-day food drive. The Letter Carriers’ food drive is held each year on the second Saturday in May in 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam.

Individuals were asked to leave donations of non-perishable food next to their mailboxes for mail carriers to pick up.  The items were to be delivered to local food banks, food pantries, and shelters.

Last year, letter carriers collected 75.3 million pounds of food, feeding an estimated 30 million families– the third-highest amount since the food drive began in 1993. That brought the total over the past quarter-century to almost 1.6 billion pounds.