Reminder NALC food pantry donations today from your mailbox

[Omaha Steve]

If you have an item or two in your pantry you can donate, just place it in or near your mailbox.

http://www.nalc.org/commun/foodrive/

Branches ready to 'Bust a Billion' in 18th NALC national food drive

May 3—Only a few days remain until the May 8 NALC National Food Drive—an icon in the nation's effort to help millions of families facing hunger—with expectations that the drive will break through the 1 billion pound mark in total donations collected since the union's effort began 18 years ago.

As more than 1,400 NALC branches and scores of rurals-only post offices made last moment preparations, the drive received a great boost from National Hot Rod Association funny car star Ashley Force Hood to complement nationwide exposure already in place by entertainment stars Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Ryan Seacrest, and numerous local promotions by political and celebrity personalities all across the nation.


CELEBRITY BOOSTERS

Ashley Force Hood

Courteney Cox

David Arquette

Ryan Seacrest

The drive this year hopes to exceed last year's 73.4 million pounds total, which would easily surpass the 1 billion total mark, since the current total stands at 982.7 million pounds.

Force Hood, who began promoting the food drive in 2009 by social networking her racing fans after seeing an ad in Redbook magazine, was outspoken in her praise of letter carriers and Campbell's involvement.

"I really think it is neat that postal carriers...are helping out and making it so easy to donate food," Force Hood said. "I really think we can make a difference and I hope all my fans and NHRA fans in general will really get behind this and donate a lot of food."

In addition to the traditional reporting of final results (this year by May 25), NALC is seeking fast Internet reports over the weekend of preliminary results that would enable the union to announce early next week how the drive went and that we had broken the 1 billion pound mark, even as the count continued toward the final, complete results (see below).

More than 126 million postcards, sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service and Campbell Soup Company, were delivered to branches to remind residents to leave food out by their mailboxes on May 8. These followed more than 40 million special Valpak envelopes that were delivered in April and May also promoting donations.

Also joining in support of the drive were national partners:

* National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association
* U.S. Postal Service’s Priority Mail
* Campbell Soup Company
* Valpak direct marketing
* United Way Worldwide and its local United Ways
* AFL-CIO
* Feeding America, the nation’s food bank network

FULL story at link.