(WESTERN NEW YORK) – As it’s done every year for the past 26 years nationally, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC)-led Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive will take place on Saturday (May 13th) across the United States, which is the largest one-day collection of donated food for the hungry in the country.

But here in Western New York, it will actually be the 26th year in a row that the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive will take place, according to representatives of NALC/Branch 3 in Buffalo.

“Buffalo ‘actually started what’s become a national effort,’” NALC/Branch 3 President Larry Kania tells WNYLaborToday.com.  “When ‘you look back at it all, we were ahead of everybody.’”

Last year’s drive broke prior records, with more than 80 million pounds of food collected and distributed to pantries, food banks, homeless shelters, religious institutions and other charitable groups that feed the hungry, according to NALC Community Outreach Coordinator and Food Drive Director Pam Donato. 

On Saturday, as many as 1,000 Letter Carriers across the region - from Niagara County down to the New York-Pennsylvania State Line - and more than 300 volunteers will collect and deliver the donated non-perishable food items from across Western New York, NALC/Branch 3 Food Drive Coordinator Nicole Marasco tells Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.

A mailer went out to household across Western New York this week with the tag line: Fill a Bag.  Help Feed Families, with details to homeowners on what to donate and where to place their donations, which all go to local outlets.

Marasco, who spoke to area Union Representatives Tuesday evening (May 9th) at the Buffalo AFL-CIO Central Labor Council’s monthly meeting, asked all in attendance to not only support the event by leaving a bag of non-perishable foods at or near their mailboxes for Postal Workers to pick up while they delivered the mail, but to fill the bag with foods that are healthy, including canned tuna, beans, peanut butter, soup, cereal, oatmeal and other whole grains, canned fruit and canola and olive oil, as well as canned meats.

“We’re ‘shooting for healthier, non-perishable donations this year,’” Marasco told WNYLaborToday.com. “People ‘just don’t realize how many families need help in the summer when school is off, because they depend on in-school meals to help feed their kids.’”

“The ‘need is worse than ever and we need to have people make donations.’  ‘We make donations to eighty-six pantries across the region that literally helps every neighborhood in Western New York,’” added Marasco, who also noted the Buffalo/Western New York Region collected around 880-pounds of donated non-perishable foods during last year’s effort.

Marasco also asked all to help spread the word and blast out the Stamp Out Hunger message on their Social Media pages, such as Facebook, an on Twitter.

The net result of all this, says NALC National President Fredric Rolando, will be even more food for those who need it the most.  “Letter Carriers see many” of the hungry “along our routes each day,” he recently said.  “Our food drive can make a ‘positive difference in the lives of those who have been dealt difficult hands.’”

Marasco - who has been involved in Stamp Out Hunger for 22 years now, including 15 years as its local director, tells WNYLaborToday.com she is “extremely proud” of those NALC Members and volunteers who come out every year to make the effort such a success.

“People ask me ‘why I bother to continue to do this because there are a lot of headaches,’” she told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.  “But ‘over the years I’ve seen the best of our Members, who roll up their sleeves and give it one-hundred-percent.’”

Marasco also told WNYLaborToday.com that one of Branch 3’s Members, who lost her life to cancer, first brought her son in a stroller 21 years ago while participating in the Stamp Out Hunger event.  This week, that young man will be in attendance to help in the overall effort, she said.  “That’s how proud I am of this,” Marasco added.

For more information on the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, go to: www.stampouthunger.com.