Letter carriers' traditional food drive cancelled

22-years of helping local food pantries

For 22 years, mail carriers in Central New York have run a food drive to benefit local food pantries. Postal workers would pick up food that community members had left in their mailboxes, and would deliver a large holiday donation to the pantries. Some yearly drives would bring in as much as 800,000 pounds of food.

But after corporate sponsor, Empire Vision, backed out of its sponsorship, the letter carriers saw a drastic decrease in the amount of food donated. Empire Vision paid for 1.5 million postcards that would be delivered to residents alerting them of the drive. After the company backed out following the 2008 drive, the postal workers attempted to conduct the drive without the postcards, and saw donations drop to around 100,000 pounds. As a result, this year, the letter carriers have decided to cancel the drive for good.

Food pantries suffering from the cancellation
For some food pantries, the food collected from the letter carriers was one of the largest donations of the year. Michele Jordan, the executive director of Interfaith (Interreligious) Food Consortium in Central New York, says the lack of help from the letter carriers has had a big effect on the pantries.

"People donated the food, so it was not something they [pantries] had to purchase," Jordan said. "And it kind of filled the gaps in their shelves. So, it's hard, especially now, the way the economic situation is in our country." IFC provides donated food to supplement supplies at pantries in Onondaga County. Jordan added that it helped the food pantries get through the busy Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods.

The pantries turn to community members

The loss of collection from the postal workers, and an increase in families that require help from food pantries leaves the pantries searching for alternate ways to obtain food. Many pantries have needed to start buying their own food. As a result, many are turning to community members for their own donations of either money or food.

"I've always said Central New York is a very giving community," Jordan said, "and we hope that they'll support their pantry, or they can give us a call and if they're interested in helping us out, they can."

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