Generosity measured by the Ton

The National Association of Letter Carriers hosted their 24th annual nationwide Stamp Out Hunger food drive on Saturday, May 14. Stamp Out Hunger is the largest single-day volunteer-driven food drive in the entire United States.

Chattooga County postal workers were out in full force collecting non-perishable food items across the County. Last year, Chattooga County postal workers collected more than four tons of food to deliver to the Food Pantry. This year they were able to double that number.

Ann Maddux, 23-year veteran for USPS shared some of her heart-warming accounts of the Food Drive; those who participate and those whose families benefited. “It’s the generosity of our community that amazes me, and we as postal workers are given this opportunity to give back to the community. It’s a privilege to be able to help others in this way,” said Maddux.

The clerk from the Lyerly Post Office said she had a customer who pulled up with a car load of food. There was so much food it took four trips to get it all unloaded. The elderly customer said he just wanted to do his part in helping.

There were so many bags of food hanging from mailboxes across the county, postal workers had to make several trips back to the Post Office to empty their mail vehicles in order to continue collecting.

The Post Office gave all credit for the success of the program to the Chattooga community who so willingly gave, the Chattooga County workers, specifically Johnny Crawford’s crew who helped in transporting the food to the shelter, and Sharon Gambill and her staff at the Chattooga County Food Pantry for their efforts in sorting and stocking all the donations.

Last year, more than 71 million pounds of non-perishable food was collected across America, making it the 12th consecutive year that collections reached over the 70-million-pound mark.

Georgia alone collected over 1.8 million pounds in 2015 and since the drive began, more than 1.4 billion pounds have been collected.