Help the Post Office 'Stamp Out Hunger' This Saturday

This Saturday, May 11, is the U.S. Postal Service’s Stamp Out Hunger food drive.

Your mail carrier will be collecting canned and non-perishable foods this Saturday when your mail is delivered. You can leave a bag of food by your mailbox for pick-up.

You can donate “items like canned meats, fish, soup, bottled juice, vegetables, pasta, cereal and rice that do not require refrigeration,” according to the U.S. Postal Service. Please do not donate food in glass containers.

According to Feeding America, there are 30,500 food-insecure people in Lexington County.

Of those, 39 percent live below the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) threshold of 103 percent poverty.

In Richland County, there are 65,820 food-insecure people. Thirty-nine percent are below the poverty line. 

This is the 21st annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive. Since 1993, mail carriers have collected more than 1 billion pounds of food, including 70 million pounds in 2012.

For more information, you can follow @StampOutHunger, like Stamp Out Hunger on Facebook, or go to www.helpstampouthunger.com.