Stamp Out Hunger food drive coming Saturday

MOSES LAKE — Your letter carriers will be toting an extra burden Saturday, and they’re asking folks to make it heavier. 

The National Association of Letter Carriers’ annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, held the second Saturday in May, will see carriers collecting food for the Moses Lake Food Bank. This is the 33rd year the NALC has collected food, and in that time more than 1.9 billion pounds have been taken to food banks nationwide, according to data from the National Association of Letter Carriers.  

The Moses Lake branch of NALC collected 3,455 pounds of food last year alone, said letter carrier Josh Weivoda, who’s coordinating the Moses Lake drive. The NALC also has drives in Ephrata, Othello, Quincy, Soap Lake and Ritzville, according to its website. 

All the donor has to do is leave the food next to the mailbox, Weivoda said. 

“In some cases it’s on the porch because that’s where the mailbox is,” he said. “In other cases where people have their mailbox mounted near the sidewalk or the street, sometimes they’ll have it in the mailbox with the flag up. I’ve seen it where they take a bag and hang it off the mailbox itself. That way the carrier, as they’re driving up and delivering the mail, will just grab the bag, or grab the food inside, and be on their way.” 

With especially generous donors, Weivoda said, carriers will make note of which houses put out food and come back for it later, so it doesn’t weigh them down while they’re walking their rounds. 

Once the food is collected from homes, Weivoda said, it will be taken back to the post office and loaded into a box truck to be taken to the food bank. 

Putting out frozen foods and fresh produce isn’t a good idea, Weivoda said. But just about anything non-perishable is welcome. It doesn’t need to be packaged up; the carriers are happy to take stacks of cans or boxes. 

“When people include bags or boxes that is nice, but we don't need that either,” he said. “We can just load it straight into the truck, and a lot of us will come prepared with extra totes. Just however we can get as many people as possible to participate. We don’t want people to feel inconvenienced by 'Oh, I need to include a box or a bag.'” 

Weivoda is coordinating the drive in Moses Lake for the first time, he said, having taken over when longtime coordinator Tina Kunjara retired.  

“I’ve seen numbers where she got like 12,000 (pounds) in some years in the past,” he said. “She told me after COVID those numbers dropped off and haven’t recovered. I don’t know if I can reach 12,000, but I’d like to see it come back as much as possible.” 

This year, the carriers who work inside the Moses Lake city limits and the ones who serve the rural outlying areas will be competing, Weivoda said. The losing side’s management will have to take a pie in the face from the winners, he said. 

“So if anyone’s ever been a little bit dissatisfied with the Post Office and they think ‘I want a pie to go in their face from my mail carrier,’ they can help out in that way,” he said.