Every second Saturday in May, something quietly extraordinary happens across America. The same person who drops off your packages and picks up your outgoing mail pulls double duty, collecting bags of non-perishable food left by mailboxes to stock the shelves of local food pantries. It’s the Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, and it has been running for over three decades.
The National Association of Letter Carriers’ annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive has grown into the nation’s largest one-day food drive, helping fill the shelves of food banks in cities and towns throughout the United States.
The concept is almost disarmingly simple. Leave your donation of non-perishable food in a bag near your mailbox on the second Saturday in May, and your letter carrier will do the rest. No drop-off location to find, no online form to fill out, just a bag by the door.
The drive didn’t spring up overnight. It grew out of discussions in 1991 among NALC President Vincent R. Sombrotto, AFL-CIO Community Services Director Joseph Velasquez, and Postmaster General Anthony Frank. A pilot drive was held in 10 cities in October of 1991, and proved successful enough that work began immediately on expanding it nationwide.
Timing, it turned out, mattered a great deal. Input from food banks and pantries suggested that late spring would be the best time, because most food banks start running out of holiday-season donations by that point in the year. May was the sweet spot.
The revamped drive launched on May 15, 1993, the second Saturday in May, with a goal of having at least one NALC branch in each of the 50 states participating. The result was astounding: more than 11 million pounds of food was collected, a one-day record in the United States, involving more than 220 union branches.
It has only grown since. In the more than 30 years since it began, the food drive has collected more than 1.94 billion pounds of food for those in need.
The drive is a reminder that federal workers, often discussed in the abstract in Washington policy debates, are also neighbors. Letter carriers are on every block, in every town, six days a week. Whether it’s collecting funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, watching over elderly residents through the Carrier Alert program, or rescuing victims of fires and other mishaps, letter carriers have long stepped up when something needed to be done. The food drive is that tradition at its most organized and most impactful.
This year’s Stamp Out Hunger food drive falls on May 9, 2026. If you want to participate, check your pantry for canned goods, pasta, peanut butter, or other shelf-stable items, bag them up, and leave them by your mailbox. Your dedicated letter carriers will handle the rest.
For more information or to find your local food bank, visit nalc.org/community-service/food-drive.
