Marble Falls, Burnet post office crews helping ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ with food drive

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

BURNET — For Lottie McCorkle, the director of LACare in Burnet, the U.S. Postal Service pickup on May 11 is a big day. And it’s not because she’s expecting the latest Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes entry.

It’s what the postal carriers bring back from their appointed rounds that brightens McCorkle’s day, even entire summer.

“I can’t really explain how important this is for us,” she said. McCorkle is referring to the postal service’s annual “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive during which patrons leave perishable goods next to their mailboxes that carriers pick up and return to the post office. At that point, the food is donated to local food pantrys.

In Burnet, that pantry is LACare.

“These donations replenish our shelves,” McCorkle said. “This will provide a lot of food for the summer, especially for the kids who won’t be getting two meals at school.”

Burnet and Marble Falls postmaster Alan Smith said the annual event brings in tons of food for local pantries, including LACare in Burnet, The Helping Center in Marble Falls and Joseph’s Food Pantry in Granite Shoals.

“We like to keep the food in the community it was donated from,” Smith said.

And it does bring in a tremendous amount of food. When Smith first began the drive in Burnet several years ago, postal carriers collected a “gurney” full. That equated to between 600 pounds and 700 pounds.

Last year, Smith said, Burnet postal patrons donated tenfold their first-year amount.

“When the carriers brought it in, we filled between 30 and 35 gurneys,” Smith said. “That comes out to between 6,000 and 7,000 pounds of food. I remember when Lottie saw all those gurneys, she just started crying.”

Martin McLean, a board member of The Helping Center in Marble Falls, said the annual drive gives a tremendous boost to the food pantry.

“We get anywhere from 7,000 to 9,000 pounds in groceries that we desperately need,” he said. “It helps us immensely. It gets food on our shelves that we don’t have to buy.”

The National Association of Letter Carries, which typically is made up of in-town carriers, helped create the annual food drive 21 years ago. While the city routes have been a major part of the event, Smith said his rural carriers have also taken up the mantle and encourage their patrons to participate.

While a few cans of food or boxes of macaroni might not sound like much of an addition to carriers’ loads, Smith pointed out many on his crew have almost 700 people on their individual routes. Imagine the extra work picking up donations from each of those patrons.

“But the carriers don’t mind,” Smith said of the extra work. “They love that they are helping out the
community.”

The donation process is simple. Smith will send out a note to all the postal patrons the week before the collection and then typically follow up with a bag in which people can place non-perishable items. Once a patron loads up the bag, he or she puts it next to the mailbox. If a patron doesn’t get a bag, he or she still can put donated items by his or her mailbox for the carrier.

“You just have to put it by your mailbox,” Smith said. “If it’s too much for the carrier to pick up, I’ll go out there with my pickup and get it.”

Or, people can donate items at the local post offices. Smith said he plans on putting a collection container in the Marble Falls and Burnet post office lobbies.

There is no doubt there is a need in the local communities. McCorkle said LACare assists an average of 350 families a month, or 1,100 individuals, in the Burnet area.

“We average about 17 new families or about 40 new individuals a month,” she said. “So this (food collection) is very, very important for us. What we get (May 11) helps carry us through the summer.”

“This has been an awesome event,” Smith added. “It’s just such a blessing to help out our community. And the carriers and our customers, they are so incredible with what they do for their own neighbors.”

For more information, go to www.helpstampouthunger.com.

daniel@thepicayune.com