How to help feed struggling Phoenix families (without leaving your house)
Like so many others did with their signature events the past two years, the United States Postal Service paused its Stamp Out Hunger campaign – the largest single-day food drive in the world.
More than 140 million pounds of food that letter carriers annually collected along their route on the second Saturday of May, vanished.
Dashed, too, was the head start the food collection provided for food banks across the country into the summer months.
The good news is, Stamp Out Hunger is back this year. And here’s where you come in.
How to participate this year (it's easy)
To participate, please leave a bag of nonperishable food at your mailbox on Saturday, May 14, before your mail normally arrives. Your letter carrier will do the rest, taking the food back to the post office where food bank trucks will be waiting.
They will put a thank-you card into the mailbox to let you know your food is on the way to a family in need.
More folks need help as food, gas, rent prices soar
Inflation is sending food, gas and rent prices soaring and has families teetering on the brink of disaster. That’s why St. Mary’s Food Bank and other organizations such as United Food Bank, St. Vincent de Paul and Desert Mission are asking you to help make a difference.
St. Mary’s distributes enough food for 300,000 meals a day. About 45,000 emergency food boxes – a two- to three-day food supply for a family of four – go out to families each month.
This April, we saw a 20% jump in the number of families turning to St. Mary’s for assistance. They’ve been hit with inflation that has rent, gas and food prices skyrocketing while federal pandemic assistance money is ending. And now, the summer heat is coming.
We have seen upwards of 800 families per day at our main food bank location, just one of 900 locations where St. Mary’s provides food in Arizona.
Without the drive, we lost 1 million pounds of food
This drive has a special place in the heart of St. Mary’s and letter carriers in Arizona.
In the early 1970s, a group of letter carriers in west Phoenix and Glendale decided to give up their Sunday and asked people to leave food on their doorsteps on Mother’s Day. They used their own vehicles and family members to collect the donations for St. Mary’s, a tradition that continued until the USPS took Stamp Out Hunger national in 1990.
Without Stamp Out Hunger drives in 2020 and 2021, St. Mary’s lost nearly 1 million pounds of food at a critical time of the year. Kids who receive breakfast and lunch in school are now home for the summer, adding to costs for families at a time when food prices have spiked.
Your role is so simple, yet so important.
A reminder card and a plastic bag should appear in your mailbox this week or next. You can use that bag for your donation if you wish, but any bag of any size will do.
This is a great time to clean out your pantry for the spring or the garage if you stocked up on canned food during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an easy way to help people in need without leaving your driveway.
We have all been through so much in the past two years. But what has stayed strong is the compassion we have for our fellow man and the desire to give back to those who need a helping hand. Please remember Stamp Out Hunger on May 14 and thank your letter carrier for all their hard work that day.
Jerry Brown is director of public relations at St. Mary’s Food Bank. Reach him at jjbrown@stmarysfoodbank.org.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Stamp Out Hunger food drive is back – and sorely needed
