Saturday important for Food Bank

By Donathan Prater

Published: May 10, 2008

Most of the stamps they deal with each day are found on the letters they deliver, but Saturday, letter carriers across the country did a little stamping of a different kind.

This weekend marks the 16th year that the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive has been held.

Area residents were asked to donate what canned goods and non perishable food items, which would be collected when their postal carriers collected the mail.

“This is the largest single-day food drive in the U.S.,” said Martha Faupel, executive director of the Food Bank of East Alabama. “Last year, the food drive brought in 70 million pounds of food across the country and 35,000 pounds of food into the East Alabama Food Bank.”

While the Food Bank of East Alabama is working hard to help as many persons in need of food as they can, the number of families having a tough time putting food on the table is a growing.

“America’s Second Harvest estimates that one in nine Americans has to seek out help with food,” Faupel said. “And when things get financially tight, something has to give.”

Faupel said that often means people end up short-changing a need in some other area in order to buy food such as foregoing a doctor visit or getting a prescription filled, not paying rent on time or decreasing the quality and quantity of their diet to compensate.

That’s a painful choice Chris Jordan is working to make sure one less person has to make.

“This food drive is a great opportunity to help those in our community that are truly in need,” said Jordan, a food distribution coordinator with the East Alabama Food Bank.

Jordan and volunteers helped collect canned food donations at the Opelika Post Office.

For Jordan, it’s a labor of love.

“Being able to be a part of this means a lot to me,” Jordan said. “I don’t just go to work to work. I go to work to help.”