Blong Moua, a Letter Carrier at Eastern Heights Post Office in Oakdale, unloads his truck on Stamp Out Hunger day 2018.
Stamp Out Hunger is the nation’s largest one-day food drive, and it’s powered by union members.
Letter Carriers across the country collected non-perishable food along their routes today for delivery to local food pantries. The carriers’ union, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), organizes the food drive each year.
Other unions co-sponsor the event, including the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the AFL-CIO.
For St. Paul-based UFCW Local 1189, it’s a natural partnership. UFCW members work in many of the grocery stores where people shop for their food donations. That includes Cub Foods, where Second Harvest Heartland sets up collection centers on Stamp Out Hunger day.
Local 1189 volunteers adopted collection sites in Oakdale and Cottage Grove this year, helping Letter Carriers unload their trucks and packing donations into semi-trailers.
“It’s kind of fun,” Local 1189 member Dennis McMahon, who works at Cub Foods in White Bear Lake, said as he unloaded mail trucks in Oakdale. Volunteering for the third time, he said the event offers a chance to “get together with some people you don’t see as much as you’d like to,” as well as support a good cause.
Stamp Out Hunger is in its 26th year. In 2017, Letter Carriers collected 75 million pounds of food nationwide.
South St. Paul carrier David Schimerowski, a member of NALC Branch 28, said donations along his route were about the same as in previous years.
Schimerowski, in his 21st year as a Letter Carrier, has never missed a Stamp Out Hunger Saturday.
“It usually adds about an hour and a half to my route,” he said. “But I like it.”
Union Advocate 
[…] the 26th annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive—the largest single-day food drive in the world—and helped to collect millions of pounds of non-perishable food made by union members for local food banks. The UFCW has served as a national sponsor of the […]