ELYRIA — It was a down year Saturday for the annual, nationwide Stamp Out Hunger food drive, with donations and collections lower than last year, officials said.
For Stamp Out Hunger, U.S. Postal Service customers are asked to leave non-perishable donations near their mailboxes the day of the drive. Letter carriers and volunteers then collect donations and bring them to local food banks and organizations for distribution in the community.
Donations were down this year, the 34th annual drive. That was expected, said Dale Jones, program director at the Salvation Army Elyria Corps.
“The need is still there” even as gas and food prices rise, Jones said while watching volunteers unload bags and boxes from Postal Service vans or carriers’ personal cars, then sort them into boxes for storage.
Jones said he was grateful for the public, the volunteers who showed up and the letter carriers who gave their time and effort.
Of course it was down and it’s been declining for a while. It doesn’t help that management doesn’t insure that the food drive cards are even delivered. Gotta keep those work hours down, bud. The rural carrier mantra is that “we don’t get paid for that.” Sadly, they probably don’t, along with all of the other stuff they don’t get paid for. When management doesn’t even bother to insure the cards are delivered, the outcome is assured. If the OIG audited the food drive, it would be like all of their other audits-a failure.