The Stamp Out Hunger food drive, hosted each year by the National Association of Letter Carriers, is the largest single-day food drive in the country and will be going on Saturday nationwide. The Stamp Out Hunger food drive was created in 1993 and is held in 10,000 cities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam.

Locally, the drive helps the food bank stock up for the summer, a time of the year when there tends to be a decrease in donations.

“The timing of this drive is absolutely wonderful,” said Martha Henk, executive director of the Food Bank of East Alabama. “What’s challenging about that is that summer is when many of our food pantries see a big increase of families coming for help. Families tend to turn to the food pantries to help them out in the summertime.”

Residents can participate in the cause by placing a sturdy bag filled with non-perishable food near their mailboxes on Saturday morning. Though bags were sent to many residents in the mail, Henk said any bag will work.  Boxes can also be used.

“We’d love to see a nice variety of fruits and vegetables and anything with protein… like peanut butter, or tuna or chicken,” Henk said.

Letter carriers will collect the items Saturday morning and staff from the food bank will pick them up at the post offices in Auburn, Opelika and Tuskegee.

The food bank is requesting food that is not in glass containers.

Last year, the Stamp Out Hunger food drive helped collect 27,000 pounds of food for the food insecure in the local community. In the food bank’s seven county service area, 70,210 people are food insecure. Of that number, more than 20,000 are children, according to Henk.

“…We…rely heavily on the community’s support,” Henk said. “More than half of our agencies… rely on us for 100 percent of their food supply.”

Henk expressed her appreciation to members of the community for their support of the annual event.

“We live in a fantastic community,” Henk said. “When people are made aware of a need, they respond.”