TEXARKANA -- Texarkana residents can contribute to local food banks and nonprofit organizations by leaving non-perishable food items out with their mail on Saturday morning.
The Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, the country's largest one-day food drive, provides residents with an easy way to donate food to those in need. Customers simply leave their donation of non-perishable food items next to their mailbox before the delivery of the mail Saturday.
Letter carriers will collect these food donations on that day as they deliver mail along their postal routes. They then bring the food back to the post office, where it's collected by the food banks to be distributed to local pantries.
The traditional food drive is returning this year after a two-year hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic. The event comes at a critical time, said Camille Wrinkle, CEO of Harvest Regional Food Bank, which is sponsoring the event along with the National Association of Letter Carriers.
"This is absolutely beneficial to Harvest and the people we serve," she said. "With the recent rise in fuel and grocery costs, the coming months are going to be really hard on the families we serve.
"During the summer there are more meals to provide for your family because school is out. And a lot of children in our area are benefiting from school-provided meals during the school months. In the summer, it becomes much more of a burden for the family to provide those extra meals."
Food donations will benefit Randy Sams' Outreach Shelter, Mission Texarkana, Salvation Army, Domestic Violence Prevention and Harvest Regional Food Bank's area pantries.
In the 30 years since it began, the food drive has collected about 1.82 billion pounds of food for struggling residents nationally, according to NALC. Stamp Out Hunger Coordinator Sallie Moore said the food drive relies on its local and rural letter carriers to carry out the event.
"We couldn't do this without all the letter carriers who spend extra time that day to collecting food, in addition to delivering and collecting," she said. "We do it because we know it helps local families who are in need."
(To learn more, visit harvestregionalfoodbank.org.)