Clean Out the Cupboards, Leave Food Near the Mailbox
Continuing the tradition of supporting the community’s less-fortunate families, the men and women of the New Carlisle Post Office will collect food donations on Saturday as part of the annual Stamp Out Hunger National Food Drive. All food donations collected in the New Carlisle and Bethel Township areas will remain right here in the community and distributed to families in need by Bethel Churches United’s food pantry.
The annual initiative, led by the National Association of Letter Carriers, is the largest one-day food drive in the country. Every second Saturday in May, letter carriers and other volunteers work to pick up and transport the generous donations left out with the mail by residents. Since its inception 24 years ago, the Stamp Out Hunger food drive has collected one billion pounds of food, all of which is delivered to food pantries and assistance agencies within the county where it was collected.
In New Carlisle, many local business owners join with citizen donors to assist the local drive with cash donations by sponsoring the familiar signs we see downtown around this time each year. The USPS has donated $5,300 in cash to the BCU food pantry since beginning the sign campaign in 2013, with such funds being used to handle immediate pantry needs.
I spoke with Alberta Ellis of the BCU food pantry last week, who expressed her appreciation for the donations received in the annual Stamp Out Hunger drive.
“The last time the Post Office collected food, they did an absolutely fabulous job,” said Ellis.
In 2015, local letter carriers delivered more than 7,000 pounds of food to the BCU food pantry, as well as just over a thousand in cash from the sign sponsorship campaign.
Ellis said foods received from the Postal Service’s Stamp Out Hunger drive are the largest bulk donations the pantry receives each year, followed by the Boy Scouts’ annual food drive as well.
She said items needed most this year are dried beans, hamburger helper, condiments, peanut butter and jelly, and any sort of canned items. Ellis said it is very important that donors check the expiration date on the foods before they place them out on Saturday for the carriers to collect. She stressed that any expired items will not be accepted, as the pantry cannot distribute those outdated foods.
Ellis said that like every other pantry, BCU’s has seen the need for food assistance skyrocket in the past few years, noting that they’ve also noticed a spike in the amount of very large families patronizing their services.
The BCU food pantry is open twice per week at their Pike Street location from 4-5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays from 12-2 p.m. A birth certificate for everyone in the household as well as official identification cards are required to receive assistance from the BCU pantry.
Ellis said the pantry relies on donations from BCU’s 14 area churches, which all commit to donating needed items each month. She said the pantry is staffed strictly by volunteers, and requires eight of them to operate the pantry each day it is open.
In addition to food, the pantry also supplies less-fortunate families with personal items that cannot be purchased with food stamps, such as dish soap, feminine products, soap, shampoo, and similar items.
To donate food in the upcoming drive, place your nonperishable or personal products in a bag or box near your mailbox this coming Saturday, May 14, and your carrier will pick up the items and deliver them to the local food pantry.
