Postal Service’s Stamp Out Hunger food drive returns; place bags of food on your porch Saturday

If you want a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier to pick up a package, you usually need to have the proper postage applied.

On Saturday, you can leave a bag or a box of donated nonperishable food at your mailbox, with no postage necessary.

The U.S. Postal Service will be picking up donated food during their 30th annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. After a two-year pause due to the pandemic, it’s up and running again.

According to Postal Service Safety Engagement Leader Jamie Wright, the Stamp Out Hunger event is the nation’s largest single-day food drive.

“The Postal Service is uniquely qualified to help. Our letter carriers visit every address in the country, and they are eager to help their neighbors,” said Wright.Mailboxes will have a bag and a label for residents to put food into. People can put nonperishable food items in the bag or their own container or box and leave them next to their mailboxes.

Such items as canned soup, canned meats and fish, canned vegetables and boxed food such as cereal, oatmeal, pasta and rice can be donated.

Food collected by the postal workers goes back to the communities where it was collected.

The food gathered in the North East San Fernando Valley will go to the nonprofit Meet Each Need with Dignity (MEND) organization. MEND serves the northeast San Fernando Valley helping people in need.

The pandemic has hit food banks hard and MEND is hoping for some relief during Stamp Out Hunger.

“With the pandemic, we still got donations, but the problem is we are missing many key items such as low-sodium and high protein items, which are the most expensive and the most important,” said David Hernandez, Program Manager of Community Nourishment Programs for MEND. “We have a lot of people who are displaced or homeless who have trouble affording their grocery bills because of inflation. Most key items are pricier, making it difficult for people to afford them. In the summer we have kids not in school so grocery bills do go up quite a bit as kids are home. This is a whole bunch of welcomed food that the people of Pacoima and all over the U.S. do need’”

MEND hands out about 600 bags of food that feeds around 2500 people each week. MEND will pair the nonperishable food they receive from the event and pair it with other food items to make nutritious meals for people in need.

Janet Marinaccio, president, and CEO of MEND, said:  “for us, it (Stamp Out Hunger) is really important, especially for the summer. A lot of the families we serve have children. Those children often receive free and low-cost meals at school, and when they aren’t in school, they aren’t getting their breakfast and lunch very often. Getting this extra food helps the families bridge that gap. Summer is also a time when all donations sort of dwindle because people are enjoying their summer, going off, and having vacations.’

She added: “It really helps us stock the food bank largely for the summer to make sure we have enough so when people come through, we can get them what our clients call the good stuff. Our staff does a phenomenal job putting together balanced meals, and our team is always committed to putting together a balance bag or box of food with a protein, starch, and vegetables. We also try to make sure we are doing popular food with kids and our clients, culturally relevant food.”

MEND has partnered with Stamp out Hunger for years, “cumulatively We have received possibly a million pounds of food or more from the community through Stamp Out Hunger, and it goes directly back into the community to the people that really need it. Each individual that comes through will receive about 50 pounds of food,” said Chanya Blumenkrantz, Chief Development Officer for MEND. Throughout its 29-year history, Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive has collected over 1.88 billion pounds of food nationwide.