Letter Carriers Drive reaps unprecedented harvest

Bay Area Food Banks receive more than 900,000 pounds

Despite his post office’s longstanding status as Alameda County’s top producer in the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Drive, Pleasanton postmaster Gurjant Khosa was taking no chances with the 17th annual version of the drive on May 9.

Battening the hatches against a battered economy, Khosa went to pains to promote the drive through local media and introduced a program in which each of his 65 letter carriers supplied biodegradable bags to their postal customers to fill with non-perishable food. He even convinced a local auto mall to promote the drive by flashing a message to passersby on I-580.

But it wasn’t until a few days after the drive that Khosa fully realized what his efforts had wrought.

“They called me after they transferred everything to the food bank truck and asked me if I wanted to have a look,” Khosa said. “When they opened the door, I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

Spilling out of the tractor-trailer was 25,770 pounds of food – virtually double the amount collected by Khosa’s carriers the year before. In Discovery Bay, postal carriers saw their donations increase by 111 percent over 2008.

So it went throughout the Bay Area, where 8,700 postal carriers from 145 post offices reaped a record haul of 909,812 pounds of food from postal patrons – 40.3 percent more than the 2008 drive.

“I have been around food banking long enough to think I have seen everything,” said Larry Sly, executive director of the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, “but I am constantly amazed at the incredible generosity our community shows through the Letter Carriers food drive.”

Several thousand pounds likely will be added to the total as the recipients of the bounty – the seven Bay Area Food Banks operating under the Feeding America banner – finalize their totals in the upcoming week.

“The results of this year’s drive are outstanding. Food banks are really feeling the pinch as more and more people seek food assistance,” said Keith Flagler, Interim CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. “This influx of food drive really helps us meet this need.”

Poundage for the nation’s largest one-day food drive had been trending downward since peaking in 2005. Bay Area Food Banks received 648,626 pounds from letter carriers in 2008. While the 2009 national totals won’t be announced by the carriers’ union until June 1, the May 9 collaboration dramatically reversed course on the drive’s direction in the Bay Area.

"The letter carriers have once again made it easy and possible for our community to give food – this year needed more than ever,” said David Goodman, executive director of Sonoma County’s Redwood Empire Food Bank. “We are grateful for their hard work and dedication to help us feed hungry people.”

Bay Area Food Banks have been swarmed by demand in 2009 as legions of the newly unemployed have swelled the ranks of the hungry.

“One postmaster told us there were bags of food lined up against the walls in apartment complexes and retirement homes, places where donations were virtually non-existent in previous years,” said Alameda County Community Food Bank executive director Suzan Bateson. “The generosity of residents living on fixed incomes – and many other donors – filled us with joy and gratitude.”

Added Paul Ash, executive director of the San Francisco Food Bank: “We appreciate the support of the community for their donations, as well as the dedication from the postal service to carry out this drive every year. As the economy worsens and more people look to Bay Area food banks for assistance, it is wonderful to see our neighbors step up their commitment to our programs.”

MEDIA CONTACTS

Alameda County Community Food Bank
Brian Higgins: (510) 636-4902 bhiggins@accfb.org

Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano
Lisa Sherrill: (925) 676-7543 ext. 206 lsherrill@foodbankccs.org

Redwood Empire (Sonoma County) Food Bank
Lee Bickley (707) 523-7900 ext 15 lbickley@refb.org

San Francisco Food Bank
Renske Van Staveren: (415) 282-1900 ext. 262 rvanstaveren@sffb.org

Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties
Lynn Crocker: (408) 694-0044 lcrocker@shfoodbank.com

www.bayareahunger.org

Press Release: NALC Stamp Out Hunger Drive, Saturday, May 9, 2009

Bay Area food banks immersed in ‘hunger epidemic’
Seven counties rally around May 9 Letter Carriers Drive

Alameda County Community Food Bank, Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, Redwood Empire (Sonoma County) Food Bank, San Francisco Food Bank, 
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. See end of post for Media Contacts.

At Bay Area food banks, foreboding statistics are being amassed by the pallet.

Calls to the food hotline at Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties have skyrocketed by 54 percent since the outset of 2009. A similar line at the Alameda County Food Bank has doubled its business in just two years. In January, USDA distribution sites in eastern Contra Costa County doled out 81 percent more food than the same month a year earlier. Sonoma County’s Redwood Empire Food Bank has seen a 22% surge in demand in 2009. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Food Bank is scrambling to fill the void left by a 75 percent drop in manufacturer’s donations of one of its staple items: cereal.

“The evidence is overwhelming,” said Alameda County Community Food Bank executive director Suzan Bateson. “We’ve crossed the threshold that separates hard times from a hunger epidemic.”

Bateson and her colleagues throughout the Bay Area are pinning their hopes of relief on the biggest one-day food drive in the nation – the 17th Annual National Association of Letter Carriers’ (NALC) Drive on the morning of Saturday, May 9.

“This drive comes at a critical time,” said Keith Flagler, interim CEO for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, the Bay Area’s largest-volume food bank. “Donations tend to drop off after the holidays, while the food banks see an increase in requests from parents of school-aged children. Couple this with an inundation of economic victims – people who never before needed help from a food bank – and it makes for a very precarious situation.”

In 2008, the NALC drive raised 650,000 pounds of food for the seven Bay Area county food banks that operate under the banner of Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest), the national association of food banks headquartered in Chicago. Despite an abysmal economy - and a three-year trend of shrinking donations to the drive - the 7,500 letter carriers participating in the Bay Area have set their sights on collecting 775,000 pounds on May 9. That would provide approximately 600,000 meals.

“We’re in urgent need of the incredible support we receive from the NALC drive this year more than ever,” said Larry Sly, executive editor of the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. “We’ve never seen demand on this level.”

The format, which Redwood Empire Food Bank executive director David Goodman describes as “the easiest method ever devised to donate food,” hasn’t changed since the inaugural drive in 1993. Postal patrons simply leave a box or bag of non-perishable food by their home or business mailbox on the morning of May 9. The letter carriers do the rest, transporting the donated food to collection bins at one of 140 Bay Area post offices. From there, the food is trucked to the local county’s food bank, where it is weighed, sorted and distributed to a vast network of food pantries, soup kitchens and community agencies.

“This drive is my favorite workday of the year,” said Linda James, who coordinates the Sonoma County collection effort. “It gives carriers a chance to help our community, our customers – those people in need that we see every day.”

“We’re part of the fiber of the neighborhoods,” said Danny Laffan, president of NALC Branch 193 in San Jose. “On a daily basis, we see and feel the impact these tough economic times have on our customers. More families than ever are being affected. All of our drives are important; this year’s is critical.”

In late January, Postmaster General John E. Potter warned Congress that service cuts may be necessary, telling a Senate subcommittee that the postal service may be forced to cut mail delivery from six to five days a week.

“We’re not just observers to all the economic turmoil; these are hard times for the postal services, as well,” said San Lorenzo letter carrier Dennis Stecz, who organizes the Alameda County collection effort and has participated in every NALC Drive. “All things considered, this is undoubtedly the most important drive we’ve ever conducted.”

“Everybody wins in the Letter Carriers Drive,” added San Francisco drive organizer Kim Troung. “Our customers get a warm feeling from donating food, we letter carriers are proud to make such an impact on our communities and the people that receive this food - many of whom we see every day - are in dire need of it.”



MEDIA CONTACTS

Alameda County Community Food Bank
Brian Higgins: (510) 636-4902 bhiggins@accfb.org

Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano
Lisa Sherrill: (925) 676-7543 ext. 206 lsherrill@foodbankccs.org

Redwood Empire (Sonoma County) Food Bank
Lee Bickley (707) 523-7900 ext 15 lbickley@refb.org

San Francisco Food Bank
Renske Van Staveren: (415) 282-1900 ext. 262 rvanstaveren@sffb.org

Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties
Lynn Crocker: (408) 694-0044 lcrocker@shfoodbank.com

www.bayareahunger.org

Stories from the frontlines: Letter Carriers who serve Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties

For Letter Carrier Tommy Rivera, participating in the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive has been a natural progression of the philanthropic spirit that he says he learned from his dad.

“My dad used to work with the St. Vincent de Paul’s society and was in charge of the Thanksgiving food hand out at our local parish,” says Rivera. “During the rest of the year he always ran a pantry where people could come get a full box of food. I am really proud of my dad for the work he did helping people.”

Tommy has been a letter carrier for 18 years. He services the Westgate area of San Jose and has actively taken part in the Letter Carriers’ Drive his entire career.

“People on my route are very supportive of the drive, but I have noticed the last few years the donations were low,” says Rivera. “This year we are really promoting it and talking it up with our customers because the need right now is so high in the community and the food we collect really makes difference.”

Although the drive creates extra work for Rivera and his fellow Letter Carriers’, he says they do not mind.

“We do a barbeque in the back lot and make it into an exciting, fun day. Even though we are working harder we know it is a good thing to do and we give our customers a chance to help out.”

Referring to the extra weight he lugs on the day of the drive, Rivera says “It’s not heavy, it’s for the hungry.”

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Rosie Laauli has worked as a Letter Carriers’ Drive coordinator since she first started servicing her Campbell-based route eight years ago.

“I like to get involved in things that revolve around giving,” she says. “Giving is important.”

Laauli knows that the non-perishable donations she and her fellow letter carriers collect are especially important this year, so they are doing their part to make sure customers on their routes know about the drive.

“Our union had t-shirts printed that we could purchase for $10, “ she says. “Most of us bought them and we will be wearing them the week before the drive to advertise as we go about delivering mail.”

In addition, the USPS printed promotional cards that the letter carriers put in the customer’s mailboxes.

“I want to thank all letter carriers for participating in this drive,” says Laauli. “Without everyone’s help it would not be possible to collect the donations. We all feel it is a privilege and an honor to get to not just do our jobs but to give back to our community.”

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For 22 years, letter carrier Jas Nijar has spent one Saturday each May picking up donations left for him as part of the national drive to collect food for people in need in our communities.

“I don’t mind the extra work,” he says. “I just want to go out and do something for the community and this makes me feel good.”

Nijar is optimistic about this year’s drive citing the fact that many people on his route are already asking him about it.

“I think people know the need is great in the community so they really want to make sure they participate,” Nijar says. “There are a lot of generous people out there.”


MEDIA CONTACT:
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties
Lynn Crocker: (408) 694-0044 lcrocker@shfoodbank.com
http://www.secondharvestfood.org

Stories from the frontlines: Letter Carriers who serve Alameda County

PLEASANTON
Gurjant Khosa has been involved in the letter carriers’ effort since the drive’s inception in 1993 – the first 10 years as a Pleasanton letter carrier.

“I take this drive very personally,” said Khosa, who now serves as the postmaster for the Pleasanton Post Office. “We’ve been very successful at this post office in producing increasingly more food for the Food Bank each year. I’m confident that we’ll increase the intake in Pleasanton this year.”

Much of Khosa’s optimism is linked to Pleasanton’s track record for producing big in the NALC Drive; in 2008, residents contributed 13,000 pounds of food – over 11 percent of the total for Alameda County, which has 19 post offices participating in the drive.

“The people of Pleasanton have been an exceptional partner in the fight against hunger,” Bateson said. “Their actions have spoken volumes over the years.”

It was Pleasanton, in fact, that Bateson identified as the test city for a biodegradable bag program to extract even bigger donations for the May 9 drive. The blue bags, which features comic-page artist Bill Keane’s “Family Circus” characters – Keane annually donates a drawing to promote the drive – will be delivered to 20,000 Pleasanton postal patrons three days before the drive, Khosa said. On the following day, postal patrons will receive a postcard reminder to fill up those bags for the Saturday drive.

Pleasanton is the only community in Alameda County receiving the bags – residents elsewhere must supply their own packaging for their non-perishable donations. The city’s 65 letter carriers do the rest, transporting the donated food to the collections bins at the Village Parkway post office. From there, the food is trucked to Food Bank, where it is weighed, sorted and distributed to a network of 176 food pantries, soup kitchens and community agencies throughout Alameda County.

Food donations for the drive have taken a dip for three consecutive years throughout the county. Not so in Pleasanton, where donations have steadily increased on annual basis.

“People generally think of Pleasanton as an upscale community,” Khosa said, “But this economic crisis has affected people in every community. The people here understand that. I’m confident that they’ll respond in kind on May 9.”

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PIEDMONT, MONTCLAIR AND OAKLAND HILLS
Audrey Osbey has been involved in the letter carriers’ effort since the drive’s inception in 1993 – first as a letter carrier in San Pablo, then as a member of the postal management team.

“Our station has been one of the most successful collection sites,” said Osbey, the station manager of the 41st Street (Oakland) Post Office that serves Piedmont, Montclair and the Oakland hills. “The people in this community have always been willing to step up and give. I think that giving spirit that will be more evident than ever in this economy.”

In the 2008 Letter Carriers’ drive, the 41st Street location collected 6,196 pounds of food – fourth among the 19 participating post offices throughout Alameda County.

“We need donations this year more than ever,” said Dennis Stecz, a San Lorenzo letter carrier and the longtime Alameda County coordinator for the drive. “Piedmont has proven to be the little city with the big heart – in Montclair’s case, the little community with the big heart.”

The format hasn’t changed since the inaugural drive in 1993. Postal customers simply leave donations of non-perishable foods like rice, beans, peanut butter, pasta and canned vegetables in a bag or box beside their residential or business mailbox. The letter carriers of Piedmont and Montclair do the rest, transporting the donated food to the collections bins at the 41st Street Post Office. From there, the food is trucked to Food Bank, where it is weighed, sorted and distributed to a network of 176 food pantries, soup kitchens and community agencies throughout Alameda County.

Food donations for the drive have taken a dip for three consecutive years throughout the county. Not so in Piedmont and Montclair, where donations have steadily increased on annual basis.

“We generally have a barbecue the morning of the drive,” Osbey said. “This drive serves as a rallying point for the letter carriers. We take a lot of pride in doing our part.”


MEDIA CONTACT:
Alameda County Community Food Bank
Brian Higgins: (510) 636-4902 bhiggins@accfb.org
http://www.accfb.org/

Stories from the frontlines: Letter Carriers who serve Contra Costa and Solano Counties

Neil's Story
There are thousands of letter carriers who make the Stamp Out Hunger food drive a success by donating their time and energy. One such Carrier, Neil Zarchin, has been involved at the coordinator level of the food drive for about 14 years. Neil says “I can see no reason for anyone to go without food in this world, much less in the wealthy nation. There is no point in looking for blame or responsibility, especially when children are involved. The bottom line is there is enough to go around, its a matter of distribution.”

Neil learned the hard way that even working people live close to the edge, and all it takes is one simple mistake to have children missing a meal or two - unless there is someone willing to lend a hand. “One time, about 15 or so years ago, I was a single parent. I was working at the Post Office, so we were getting by, although there wasn't much to spare,” says Neil. “One day, I forgot to sign my paycheck when I deposited it at the ATM. The clerk who opened the machine the next day found the error and mailed the check back to me. Unfortunately, I had just moved, so it was going to take a week for it to work its way through the system. In the meantime, I had no money.”

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Jeovani's Story
Jeovani R. Abenoja is the Lafayette Post Office's Safety Captain and Customer Connect NALC coordinator and even though he tired to come up with any excuse not to get even more involved, he decided to take over this years Food Drive to see what difference he could make.

“I love to help people, and face challenges that I know I can personally help make a difference in,” says Jeovani. “The United States doesn't discriminate when it comes to hunger. Even some families that lived in upper scale neighborhoods, drove Mercedes Benz's, and even donated thousands of dollars a year to charities, have been seen at their local food bank seeking assistance during this economical crisis. That in itself was and should be enough to motivate anyone to take charge and do their fair share.” That's why he decided to be this years Lafayette Post Office Food Drive Coordinator.”

Jeovani asks, "are you doing your fair share?”


MEDIA CONTACT:
Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano
Lisa Sherrill: (925) 676-7543 ext. 206 lsherrill@foodbankccs.org
http://www.foodbankccs.org/

Stories from the frontlines: Letter Carriers who serve Sonoma County

"It's Hernia Day!" joked Jerry Andersen, president of NALC Branch 183. "Every year I'm impressed by the full boxes and bags of food that we pick up! I've been on the same route for 28 years and I'll always remember an elderly lady that would buy cases of water and cans of food throughout the year, just so she could donate to the Letter Carriers' Food Drive. She made it a priority in her budget because she cared so much!"

"Its so great to see all of our Postal employees coming together for this cause", said carrier Ken Paradise. "Our Postmaster and her family spent 3-4 hours last year on Food Drive day, working out on our dock, sorting and loading food for the Food Bank. Everyone cares about our customers, especially since the need is so much greater this year!"

MEDIA CONTACT:
Redwood Empire (Sonoma County) Food Bank
Lee Bickley (707) 523-7900 ext 15 lbickley@refb.org
http://www.refb.org

How the Bay Area Food Banks fight hunger

Bay Area Food Banks acquire millions of pounds of food for distribution by collecting donated food through community food drives, by trucking in donated surplus groceries and fresh produce from manufacturers, wholesalers and produce growers, and by purchasing selected food items that are needed for food assistance programs in the community. We depend on thousands of volunteers to help us sort, pack and deliver food.

Though most of our food is donated, we are able to obtain purchased food at low cost so that every dollar donated goes even further. In addition, each food bank serves targeted geographic areas, which prevents duplication of food distribution efforts and makes us highly efficient in providing nutritious food to adults, seniors and children who are in need.

Food banks are successful at reducing hunger because of tremendous local support. We depend on donors who generously give money and food, volunteers who sort and pack food in our warehouses and distribute bags of groceries, and advocates willing to speak to public officials and the media about solutions to hunger. Your help is needed more than ever as thousands of people in our community are living on the margins, barely holding on.

Find Your Food Bank