This year’s Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive collected 70.6 million pounds of food, organizers reported this week.
This is the 12th consecutive year donations have surpassed 70 million pounds. Approximately 1.4 billion pounds have been collected since the drive began in 1992.
Stamp Out Hunger, sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and USPS, is the nation’s largest single-day food drive.
The drive aims to combat hunger, which affects 49 million people in the United States, including 16 million children.
During the drive, customers place bags of nonperishable food next to their mailboxes. USPS collects the food and donates it to local pantries, shelters and other charitable organizations.
This year’s drive was held May 9. Donations were collected in 10,000 communities in the 50 states, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam.
Postal Service employees spend several weeks preparing for Stamp Out Hunger, including promoting the event in Post Offices and the news media.
Other organizations that contributed to this year’s drive include Feeding America, the AFL-CIO, United Way Worldwide, Valpak and Valassis Communications Inc.