Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05

Stamp Out Hunger in the High Country

Sixteenth Annual Food Drive on Saturday

Story by Garrett Simmons

According to estimates, more than 35 million Americans currently live in households considered food insecure. Of these 35 million, an estimated 12.6 million are children. On Saturday, May 10, post offices across the country will combat hunger in the United States by participating in the sixteenth annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive.

The event is sponsored by the National Letter Carriers Association and Campbell Soup Company, and over the last 15 years has become the largest single-day food drive in the United States.

The NLCA encourages residents of Watauga County to join the fight by donating nonperishable food items to their community food pantry, the Hunger and Health Coalition in Boone. Items may include canned soups, vegetables and meats, juice, pasta, rice and peanut butter. Residents should put food items next to their mailboxes to be collected by letter carriers on Saturday as they travel their regular mail routes.

Carriers will take the food to the Hunger and Health Coalition to serve thousands of clients who live without regular nutritious meals. The Hunger and Health Coalition currently distributes approximately 10,000 pounds of nonperishables every month. Executive Director Compton Fortuna estimated that if everyone in Watauga County donated just one pound of food, the total donation would amount to more than 40,000 pounds, an amount she said could last more than four months.

Fortuna said given recent inflations in food and fuel prices, Hunger and Health Coalition clients have been forced into choosing between food and other necessities. “This year is critical,” she said. “We are seeing lots of new faces, and also many people we haven’t seen in years who are now in need of help due to the economy. We need every can.”

In its 15-year history, the Stamp Out Hunger food drive has become the largest of its kind in the United States. In the last four years, national totals have exceeded 70 million pounds of nonperishable food. Since its first year in 1993, more than 836 million pounds have been collected.

Every year the food drive is held on the second Saturday in May, a time when holiday donation supplies are beginning to run low in food banks. Also, for many children the end of the school year means the end of regular nutritional meals.
The drive’s two national corporate sponsors, Campbell Soup Company and Valpak/Cox Target Media, work with regional sponsors leading up to the drive on Saturday.

This year, Campbell Soup and the U.S. Postal Service partnered up to print 124 million Stamp Out Hunger postcards, and have also promoted the event with television ads featuring the Harlem Globetrotters and Stamp Out Hunger coupons. Campbell soup will also donate 1 million cans to be distributed to food pantries across the United States.

In addition, local chapters of America’s Second Harvest and United Way help coordinate and promote the event in Watauga County.

To participate, place non-perishable food items in a bag next to your mailbox before mail delivery on Saturday morning, May 10. Carriers will deliver the food to the Hunger and Health Coalition to be distributed to families in need.
For more info, contact Compton Fortuna at 828-262-1628 or hungerc@bellsouth.net, or click to www.hungercoalition.com.