WASHINGTON – Letter carriers collected over 70.7 million pounds of food donations in the nation’s largest one-day effort to combat hunger, the National Association of Letter Carriers announced today. The food was delivered to local food banks, pantries and shelters to help needy families.

Final results showed 70,745,176 pounds of non-perishable food were collected along postal routes on Saturday, May 12, in over 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states and U.S. jurisdictions. The amount was a slight increase over last year and the fourth consecutive year the union’s “Stamp Out Hunger” drive has exceeded 70 million pounds. It brought the total for the drive’s 15 years to over 836 million pounds.

This year’s total was augmented by the donation of 1 million pounds of products by Campbell Soup Company to food banks throughout the United States on behalf of the drive.

Buffalo/Western New York NALC Branch 3, which collected 2,094,193 pounds of donations, was the top NALC local branch in the drive for the fifth consecutive year.

NALC President William H. Young thanked the millions of American families who left food by their mailboxes and the thousands of letter carriers, rural carriers, and other postal employees and volunteers who collected, processed, and delivered the donations to local food banks and pantries.

“Even in these difficult times, when many family budgets are pressured by high gasoline prices, the American people showed their generosity toward those who are less fortunate,” Young said. "Too many families – including working Americans, children and the elderly – face hunger every day. We are proud to deliver donations from our postal customers to restock community food banks and pantries."

Young expressed appreciation to the U.S. Postal Service and Campbell Soup, who together supplied nearly 120 million postcards to promote the drive, as well as other major supporters: Valpak, the direct mail marketing firm; United Way of America and its local United Ways; the AFL-CIO, America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest network of food banks; and cartoonist Bil Keane, who yearly provides a special “Family Circus” drawing for the drive.