Local letter carriers pick up nearly 1 ton of donated food
By Manuel C. Coppola
Nogales International
Nearly 2,000 pounds of non-perishable food were collected on Saturday for local families, thanks to the donations by residents of Santa Cruz County and the efforts of the Nogales Community Food Bank and local members of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
Residents left bags of non-perishable food, such as canned meats, canned vegetables, canned soups, cereal, peanut butter, and canned fruit by their mail boxes so they could be collected by the letter carriers.
The packages were then delivered to the food bank on Baffert Drive. On Tuesday and Wednesday, they were distributed to local families as part of the AFL-CIO NALC’s 18th annual “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive. It is the nation’s largest single-day food drive.
Patrick Barton coordinated the local effort for the NALC. He praised the Nogales Community Food Bank for supporting the drive. NCFB Director Arthur Espinoza “was extremely helpful,” he said. “It is tough putting this drive together. But Arthur really helped make it work.”
The NALC announced Tuesday that partial reports on this year’s nationwide efforts have pushed total donations collected along postal routes since the drive began 18 years ago to more than 1 billion pounds.
NALC President Fredric V. Rolando said on the NALC Web site that preliminary data received from 404 NALC branches as of Tuesday shows 19,724,393 pounds collected. More than 1,000 local branches had yet to send in collection information.
After the first 17 years, donations totaled 982.7 million pounds. Last year, a record 73.4 million pounds of food were delivered to community food banks. Rolando said Tuesday’s early figures indicate that this year’s total could match or exceed the 2009 level, despite the poor economy.
Final official results of this year’s drive, which was conducted in more than 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico, will be announced on June 1, Rolando said.
Bill Carnegie of the Community Food Bank, cited an increase in the number of families seeking assistance. He said everything collected in Santa Cruz County stays to benefit local families in need via the Nogales food bank.
For more information, call Arthur Espinoza at (520) 281-2790.
Read on Nogales International website.
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