Local letter carriers will once again join a nationwide effort to battle food insecurity with the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive on Saturday.
Post offices in State College, Bellefonte, Boalsburg, Lemont and Pine Grove Mills will be participating in the collection. Residents are asked to leave non-perishable food items at their mailboxes or drop them off at their local post office.
“If you have a cluster box in your neighborhood, that would be where you would leave your food donation, because that’s usually where the carriers will be looking,” Kim Randolph, co-coordinator of the local food drive and a retired carrier, said at Monday’s State College Borough Council meeting, where Mayor Ezra Nanes issued a proclamation declaring May 10, 2025, as Letter Carriers’ Food Drive Day in the borough.
“And if for some reason that we would miss your donation, you can just call the office and then we will have someone come pick it up for you, or if we can’t do that then it can, of course, just be taken to the food bank.”
Since 1993, the National Association of Letter Carriers and Rural Letter Carriers’ Association have collected donations from their U.S. Postal Service customers on the second Saturday in May in more than 10,000 cities. It has become the largest one-day food drive in the nation and has collected over 1.9 billion pounds of food.
In Centre County, the drive has collected 17,361 pounds of food to be distributed to local food banks.
More than 47 million people in the U.S. are food insecure, according to Feeding America.
“Millions of Americans live in challenging situations uncertain of where their next meal will come from or if it will come at all,” Randolph said. “They are our customers, our neighbors, our families. They include children and seniors that we see along our routes each day. Sadly 13.5 percent of U.S. households are food insecure at least some time during the year.”
Randolph added that about 14 million children are food insecure, which can lead to physical and mental health issues. One in 14 older Americans are also face hunger, placing people 60 and older at risk for chronic health conditions.
“With over 30 years of letter carriers commitment to the national food drive and over 1.9 billion pounds of food collected, our communities are still in need across the country. Ending hunger is a challenge letter carriers and their communities, have taken on.
Nanes encouraged community members to place non-perishable food items near their mailboxes on Saturday, and commended the letter carriers for their work.
“We recognize all letter carriers for their hard work and their commitment to their communities and support carriers’ efforts to help those in need in our community,” Nanes said.
