SANTA CLARITA, CA - Letter carriers care about the people in the communities they serve, and on the second Saturday in May for the past 20 years they have done a lot more than collect and deliver mail. They have picked up non-perishable food donations left at mailboxes as they visit every home in the nation.

This year will be the 21st Annual National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Food Drive — the largest one-day food drive in the USA. The U.S. Postal Service and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association join NALC as official sponsors in this effort to ‘Stamp Out Hunger.’ Other sponsors include Campbell Soup Company, Feeding America, Valpak, AFL-CIO and United Way of America.

It is a very simple and easy concept: the public is asked to leave non-perishable food in a sturdy bag by their mailbox on Saturday, May 11, 2013. That food will be collected by letter carriers and distributed to local charities that provide it to people who need it — right in the same community.

Hunger and under-nutrition in America are much more serious problems than most people realize. With current economic conditions and high food prices, more families than ever struggle to keep food on the table. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual study measuring food security in the United States, the number of Americans living in food insecure homes is more than 50 million, with approximately one in every three food-insecure Americans being a child (17.2 million).

Through a lot of hard work, dedication and compassion, and the support of customers in the communities they serve, letter carriers collected over 70 million pounds of food last year -- the ninth consecutive drive surpassing 70 million pounds collected. The total donations received since the drive began in 1993 now stand at nearly 1.2 billion pounds of food. They are counting on the public’s generosity once again to help feed the hungry this year.