The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) will conduct its annual national food drive this Saturday, May 13. NALC’s food drive, first held in 1993, the food drive has collected more than 1.3 billion pounds of food.

The Stamp Out Hunger^® Food Drive, the country’s largest one-day food drive, provides residents with an easy way to donate food to those in need.

Customers simply leave their donation of non-perishable food items next to their mailbox on Saturday, May 13 before 8:00 a.m. Letter carriers will collect these food donations on that day as they deliver mail along their postal routes, and distribute them to local food banks, pantries, shelters and churches.

“Letter carriers are a part of every neighborhood in the nation,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said, “and we see the growing need for food assistance in our communities. On Saturday, May 13, NALC invites everyone to participate in the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. Together, we can help stamp out hunger in America.”

The timing is important, with food banks, pantries and shelters running low on donations from the winter holidays and with summer approaching, when most school meal programs are suspended.

On May 13, as they deliver mail, the nation’s 200,000 letter carriers will collect the donations that residents have left near their mailboxes. People are encouraged to leave a sturdy bag (or bags) containing non-perishable foods, such as canned soup, canned vegetables, canned meats and fish, pasta, rice or cereal before the regular mail delivery on Saturday. The food donations stay in each community, going to help local residents.

All donations to the Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger^® Food Drive are tax-deductible because all of the food collected on Food Drive Day is given directly to non-profit charity food agencies in the community the food was collected. Though the National Association of Letter Carriers plans the Food Drive’s logistics and letter carriers provide the transportation for each donor’s generous donation, the National Association of Letter carriers is not the agency that gets listed on tax forms for claiming deductions. There are more than 10,000 food agencies throughout the country that receive these donations, so if you itemize your taxes and want to provide proper credit for your Food Drive donations, you will need to determine the name of the agency (food pantry or other charity) that received your food, as well as the agency’s address and tax identification number for proper reporting on your tax-filing forms. The Food Drive Coordinator at your local post office (click here for a post office locator) should be able to give you the name of the receiving agency, and that agency will likely have tax information handy.