By Payton Tholstrup

Members of the Concordia Post Office are joining other mail carriers across the country this Saturday, May 10th for the National Letter Carrier’s Drive, also called Stamp Out Hunger. This is the nation’s largest single-day food drive.

Created by letter carriers in 1993, neighborhoods are encouraged to put out bags of food at the mailbox for their communities. Letter carriers in more than 10,000 communities across the United States will collect these non-perishable goods on the second Saturday in May each year.

The items are then delivered to local food banks, shelters, and pantries in the community. In Concordia, the proceeds from this drive will go to the Cloud County Resource Center and Food Bank.

“This drive is the largest of the local food bank’s year and will be very important this year with inflation and food prices as they are,” said Tonya Merrill, Executive Director of the Cloud County Resource Center. “This drive nets 3,0000 to 4,000 items for the food bank, just in time for the busiest time of year.”

Merrill said numbers for the Cloud County Food Bank have been higher than they usually are and she is anticipating further additions during the summer.

The food bank needs peanut butter, jelly, canned tuna and chicken, canned fruit, dry pasta and sauce, boxed dinners, soup, ramen, canned vegetables, and cereal, but any items will help.

Teams of volunteers interested in walking around gathering bags of food from porches should check in at the Resource Center at 107 West 7th in Concordia on Saturday morning. Merrill expects it to last anywhere from one to three hours, finishing around noon.

Items can also be dropped off at the Cloud County Resource Center throughout the week. Their office is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8 am-5 pm, Tuesday and Thursday from 1pm-5 pm, and on Saturday morning from 9am to noon.