The Largest Community-Wide Food Drive Re-emerges
As summer approaches, local food banks and church shelves normally would be well-stocked, benefiting from the pounds of food recently received from the Letter Carriers’ annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, held in May for the past 27 years.
The food drive’s timing is key, because winter holiday donations have dwindled from food pantries and homeless shelters, and school meal programs are not available in summer. The coronavirus pandemic, however, forced the postponement of the scheduled May 9 drive for safety reasons—even as the pandemic-related economic shutdown has worsened food insecurity.
To deal with this urgent situation, a donor drive has been developed to address the problem of hunger that affects many individuals in our community, including children, elderly and military veterans.
Starting Wednesday, July 15th, community members who would normally leave food by their mailbox on the second Saturday in May for letter carriers to collect, as well as the legions of community volunteers who help sort and transport the food, can accomplish the same thing by donating funds to assist local pantries purchase food. And as always, the funds procured will stay in the community to help residents in need.
This isn’t our normal food drive, of course, but these aren’t normal times. For the meantime, there may be a silver lining to this approach born of necessity. Rather than a one-day event, this effort will continue as needed. And, food banks can purchase more food than a resident could buy and donate with the same resources. Also, individuals and families across our community will be able to have a meal because of the generosity of others.
To donate to the Stamp Out Hunger Donor Drive, Text the keyword- STAMPOUT to the number 41444
OR visit our event page by clicking HERE
For more information, email Amanda Morales at impact@uwswnm.org or call the United Way office at (575)524-7561.
