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James Neiss/staff photographer getting ready: U.S. Postal Carrier Carl Nowakowski delivers mail Thursday on Hennepin Avenue. This Saturday, letter carriers will be doing more than just delivering mail. They and volunteers will be picking up food during its 17th annual drive.
FOOD DRIVE: Helping to stamp out hunger
Mail boxes will be filled with more than letters and Mother’s Day cards this Saturday. The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) is holding its 17th annual food drive, the largest single-day food drive in the country.
Last year the Niagara community alone collected 170,000 pounds of food, helping to make Western New York the second largest food collector in the drive for 2008, with 2 million pounds. The previous five years, the Buffalo and Niagara area was number one in the nation.
“Niagara County usually leads the way,” said Phil Buffone, vice president of the Niagara United Way, which works with the NALC and U.S. Postal Service to put on the food drive.
“Our Niagara community is very generous. People recognize the need out there. They recognize that there is a great and growing number of working poor in our community and people once in a while need that helping hand.”
To participate, residents need only carry a few extra items on their morning shuffle to the end of the driveway. A bag of non-perishables such as canned fruit, meat and vegetables, as well as personal hygiene products, can be placed next to the mailbox.
The letter carrier then picks up the donations on his or her regular route, and takes them back to the post office where volunteers from 12 food agencies and pantries in the Niagara area are standing by for the hand off.
“There’s no middle man,” Buffone said. “So the food goes directly from your mailbox to letter carrier and from the letter carrier to the food pantry. It never leaves this community.”
Trucks are filled with bags of the much-needed donations and taken back to kitchens where they’ll be made into hot meals for hungry Niagara residents.
Community Missions at 1570 Buffalo Ave. served up 60,000 meals last year in their dining room, which is open six days a week all year long. Grant Babcock, director of operations at the mission, said donations start to wane in the summer months.
“This fills a huge gap for us because without this, by June our pantry shelves would be very bare. I know it’s a lot of hard work. I hope they know how much we appreciate their efforts,” Babcock said of the postal workers who run the food drive.
While the letter carriers are used to lugging around sacks of mail, the added weight of cans of food makes the job more difficult. The post offices of the Niagara area are asking for volunteers to help their neighborhood mail person carry the goods back to the postal truck. Pulling a wagon or wheelbarrow alongside the letter carrier will help lighten their load.
“There’s always a need for extra hands because it’s gotten so enormous that it’s gotten hard for our letter carriers to carry the mail and gather food at same time,” said Walt Wrazin of the LaSalle post office and co-chair of the drive.
Volunteers are also in need at the post office to help load food onto trucks. To lend a hand or get more information call your local post office or the United Way of Niagara at 285-8461.
Those who don’t have cans to spare can write a check to United Way of Niagara, 3000-Military Road, Niagara Falls, NY 14304. All money received will go towards the purchase of food.
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