ROCKINGHAM — Richmond County residents are encouraged to leave food in their mailboxes this Saturday.
May 13 marks the 31st annual Stamp Out Hunger campaign, organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers.
According to the NALC website, the annual food drive “is the outgrowth of a tradition of community service exhibited repeatedly by members of the letter carriers union over the years. These carriers, who go into neighborhoods in every town six days a week, have always been involved when something needed to be done, whether it be collecting funds for a charity like the Muscular Dystrophy Association, watching over the elderly through the Carrier Alert program, assisting the American Red Cross during time of disaster, or rescuing victims of fires, crime, and other mishaps.”
The program started with a pilot drive in 10 cities in 1991, and two years later became a nationwide effort on the second Saturday of May.
From ‘93 to 2019, the drive collected 1.75 billion pounds of food, according to the NALC.
All donations, according to the NALC, are tax-deductible “because all of the food collected on Food Drive Day is given directly to non-profit charity food agencies in the community the food was collected.”
