STAMPING OUT HUNGER
Postal carriers help out in annual food drive

Participating in the Bullard Post Office annual food drive: in no particular order, are Wanda Liles, Debra Dowdy, Amber Heckel, Jeremy Smith, Sandra Clarke, Nichole Inman, Rita Berrera, Susan Mills, Lloyd Jenkins and Shelly Smith. Not pictured are: Cheryl Zavala, Lois Gunter, Dee Smith and Koren Nelson.

The world's largest one-day food drive, sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service, was held on Saturday, May 12 - with Bullard carriers participating.

Throughout the day, letter carriers nationwide picked up bags of nonperishable groceries left by mailboxes. Last year, the effort yielded 70.5 million pounds of groceries, according to Gus Ruiz, a spokesman for the Postal Service.

The program, called "Stamp Out Hunger," is now in its 15th year and has netted more than three-quarters of a billion pounds of food since its inception.

Bullard postmaster said his carriers collected about 2,000 pounds of food, which they delivered to the East Texas Food Bank last week.

The food drive began in 1992 in San Jose after Tony Cortese, a letter carrier and president of the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers, organized a local food drive by Postal Service letter carriers.

The program quickly expanded, and letter carriers in all 50 states, as well as those in Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands, now participate in the annual food drive.

The letter carriers' union is a key organizer of the effort, along with Campbell Soup Co., America's Second Harvest, the United Way and other organizations.

An estimated 35 million Americans are at risk of going hungry due to an insufficient food supply, including 12 million children, according to a statement from the Postal Service.