(Chelsea Update would like to thank Allen Wright for the information and photos in this story.)
Every second Saturday in May, the United States Post Office letter carriers in more than 10,000 cities and towns across America participate in the largest one-day food drive in the nation.
Called the NALC Stamp Out Hunger National Food Drive, postal carriers collect orange bags filled with canned goods donated by residents on their routes.
Led by letter carriers represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers (AFL-CIO), with help from rural letter carriers represented by the National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA), other postal employees and other volunteers, the drive has delivered more than one billion pounds of food to food pantries across the country during the past 24 years.
Many carriers deliver reminder cards and plastic bags to their customers and last Saturday, they picked up the non perishable items left in, at, or on mailboxes.
Almost every year, the weather presents a challenge and this year was no different. There was cold, pouring rain, hard hail, and big gusts of wind – all in a matter of what seemed like minutes.
But, that didn’t deter the carriers from collecting the donations.
And the Chelsea community does a great job of stepping up and helping out. In fact, the community’s donations amount to more than big cities and bigger communities nearby.
This year was no different as the carriers emptied out their overloaded trucks and filled up postal hampers, called pumpkins by the carriers for their Halloween colors, for an estimated total of over 8,000 pounds of donations.
“I think donations were a little down this year because of the weather,” City Carrier Ken Branch stated. “But we still picked up quite a lot and that’s great. Our customers are very giving.”
The mail carriers and clerks end up donating a lot of their time for the extra work they do but no one complains because it’s rewarding for them to help others. Salaried rural carriers go over their daily hours and are not compensated to help out – but you won’t hear any of them moan about it.
“I’ve only worked for the Postal Service for about two years and I’ve never seen so many donations,” said Brandie Gahm, who recently transferred from Manton to Chelsea. “It’s a lot of extra work but it’s a great feeling to help out others. I can’t believe how generous Chelsea people are.”
“I think it’s great for everyone to step up like they do and put in the extra time for all the extra work they have to do on food drive day,” said Heather Nichols, Chelsea postmaster. “I really appreciate all they do. I am very proud of them and am very happy to be Postmaster of such a great, giving community. I wish to thank everyone who helped out and express a personal gratitude of thanks for the families of Chelsea for giving so much.”
All the donations gathered nationwide stay in their communities.
Chelsea’s donations go to Faith in Action (FIA), a community-funded, faith-based assistance and resource center.
FIA is located just inside the north entrance to the campus of St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea at 603 S. Main St., and accepts donations all year.
