Skip to main content

Carmichael Times

The Food Must Get Through

May 17, 2019 12:00AM ● By Story and photo by Susan Maxwell Skinner

Postal carriers and volunteers unload part of the 2019 food haul donated by Carmichael residents. Mailman Julian Barbero (left) collected more than 800 pounds of groceries from his route.

CARMICHAEL, CA (MPG) - As if delivering full loads of mail on the eve of Mother’s Day were not enough, American mail carriers served a humanitarian cause on Saturday, May 11.

The National Post Office food drive gathered groceries for food banks across America. Paper sacks were distributed to millions of homes days before collection and carriers began their Saturday routes expecting to return to base heavily laden. “It was a long, hard day, but worth it to know we were helping needy families,” said the Carmichael Office union president Barry Wilson. Zone 95608’s 50 carriers and many volunteers toiled from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. collecting, hauling and sorting over 16,218 pounds of non-perishables. These were dispatched to the Sacramento Food Bank.

In days that followed, hundreds more pounds of groceries rolled in to the Post Office. The food bank also received these late donations.

“Too many people in this country are still going hungry,” said National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando. “We see this first hand in communities we serve. For more than two decades, our members have taken the lead in the effort to help. It’s an easy way for our customers to help people in their own communities. Food banks usually benefit from an upswing in donations during the holiday season. By spring, stocks dwindle.” Because school lunch programs are suspended during summer, Rolando added, many families scramble to feed children.

The success of the food drive demonstrates “the remarkable connection between letter carriers and the communities they serve,” he said. “It’s a bond that serves the nation well.”