It’s time once again to fill up a bag of food and leave it by your mailbox for the 24th annual Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, set for this Saturday, May 14 not only in Lynnwood but nationwide.

Letter carriers and other postal employees join forces with thousands of volunteers to conduct the drive in their local communities.

The availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire such food, is limited or uncertain for 1 in 6 Americans, many of whom are in households with at least one person working.

Last year’s drive collected approximately 71 million pounds of non-perishable food that was left in bags next to postal customers’ mailboxes. It was the 12th consecutive year that letter carriers have collected more than 70 million pounds of food, and it brought the drive’s grand total to more than 1.4 billion pounds of food collected.

The drive is held each year on the second Saturday in May, and so Saturday, May 14, has for months been circled on the calendars of hunger-relief advocates who have watched as food supplies collected during winter holiday drives dwindle day by day. The drive also comes just before many school systems end their academic years, and that often can mean a suspension in subsidized meals for many students.

Suitable nonperishable food items include canned meats, fish, soup, juice, vegetables, pasta, cereal, peanut butter and rice. Please don’t include items that have expired or are in glass containers.

You can learn more here.