As summer approaches, local food banks and church shelves normally would be well-stocked, benefiting from the 70 million-plus pounds of food recently received from the Letter Carriers’ annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, held in May for the past 27 years.
The food drive’s timing is key, because winter holiday donations have dwindled from food pantries and homeless shelters, and school meal programs are not available in summer. The coronavirus pandemic, however, forced the postponement of the scheduled May 9 drive for safety reasons – even as the pandemic-related economic shutdown has worsened food insecurity.
To deal with this urgent situation, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) has developed a new plan to address the problem of hunger that affects one in eight Americans, including millions of children, elderly and military veterans.
Starting this week, millions of generous Americans who normally leave food by their mailbox on the second Saturday in May for letter carriers to collect, as well as the legions of community volunteers who help sort and transport the food, can accomplish the same thing via different means.
Connecticut residents are asked to donate funds directly to food pantries to help purchase food. This has been set up in a manner that allows every dollar raised to go directly to purchasing food for the hungry.
Please donate what you can to a food bank in your community. All collections stay in the local community.
Connecticut Food Banks
North Branford Food Pantry
1382 Middletown Ave
Northford, CT 06472
www.foodpantrynb.org
St. Rita’s Food Pantry
1620 Whitney Ave
Hamden, CT 06517
www.osvonlinegiving.com
The Bread of Life Church
321 Circular Ave
Hamden, CT 06514
www.osvhub.com/christthebreadoflife
CT Food Bank
2 Research Parkway
Wallingford, CT 06492
https://donate.ctfoodbank.org
Person to Person
1864 Post Rd
Darien , CT 06820
https://p2phelps.org