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The time was about 4 p.m. Saturday, May 9, at the tail end of the National Association of Letter Carriers annual “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive. A steady parade of letter carrier vehicles arrived at the Cub Foods on County Road 10, where a waiting team of volunteers quickly unloaded the food and repacked it into large cardboard containers.
“Everybody’s giving,” said letter carrier Bryan Bloomquist, Mounds View, an 11-year NALC member. “A lot of food this year. A lot of great donations.”
Bloomquist added, “it’s a physically demanding day but it’s worth it.”
All across the United States, letter carriers collected food May 9 from homes along their routes to be donated to local emergency foodshelves.
In the Twin Cities metro area, NALC Branch 9 reported that the total collected reached 1,046,867 pounds of food, which will be distributed by Second Harvest Heartland to local foodshelves. It marked the third year in a row the total topped 1 million.
The total included food that could be purchased with a $25,000 matching grant from Land O’Lakes, which matched cash donations to the NALC food drive.
National results for the food drive will be released in early June, the union said.
Reprinted from the Minneapolis Labor Review.