June 22, 2016
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
The 24th annual Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive held last month was a big success according to the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.
Most all of the area post offices in Western Oklahoma participated in the big drive on held Saturday, May 14. The food drive, sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), is the world’s largest one-day food drive, taking place in more than 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.
According to the Food Bank, state-wide, nearly 828,000 pounds of food and more than $590,000 were raised for the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma through the annual Feeding Hope and Letter Carriers’ Food Drive. The donations raised will provide more than 3.6 million meals to hungry children, struggling seniors and hardworking families in central and western Oklahoma.
More than 170 Oklahoma City area businesses joined post offices in 198 cities in Western and central Oklahoma for the food and fund drive.
In a news release, Rodney Bivens, the executive director of the Regional Food Bank expressed his thanks for the donations collected through the drive and said people in Western and central Oklahoma will have access to food this summer.
At the time of the drive last month, Clinton Postmaster Kathy Adcock said she utilized a number of volunteers including the local Girl Scouts and several boy’s baseball teams as well as spouses of postal workers.
Elk City Postmaster Renee Green, who’s been involved in the annual postal drives for years also utilitzed a number of volunteers in addition to the many postal workers who picked up the donations at resident’s mailboxes.
In its 23 years, the Stamp Out Hunger food drive has collected more than 1.4 billion pounds of food; last year’s drive collected approximately 71 million pounds, nationally.
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