One in ten people on Long Island face a daily struggle with hunger or food-insecurity. Think about it. Your neighbor, coworker or the student sitting next to your child in school may not know when his or her next meal may be. Each week more than 70,000 people seek supplemental food support from a network of food pantries, soup kitchens, and other feeding programs served by Island Harvest Food Bank.
Island Harvest Food Bank, the National Association of Letter Carriers, and the United States Postal Service are calling on the generosity of all Long Islanders to help our neighbors in need by participating in the 25th annual Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive on Saturday, May 13. Stamp Out Hunger is the nation’s largest single-day food drive which last year collected 80.1 million pounds of food in 10,000 cities and towns and in all 50 states, including 471,553 pounds of food on Long Island, which supplemented 392,963 meals.
Residents are encouraged to leave nonperishable food items, such as canned goods, cereal, pasta, rice, boxed juices and shelf-stable milk (please, no glass items), next to their mailboxes before their regularly scheduled mail delivery on Saturday, May 13. The local USPS letter carriers will do the rest to make sure it gets to the 316,000 men, women and children across Nassau and Suffolk counties who rely on Island Harvest Food Bank’s network of hunger-relief agencies.
“The face of hunger on Long Island are working families who can’t make ends meet; senior citizens, veterans and more than 90,000 children who rely on school feeding programs but may not get enough to eat when school’s out,” explains Randi Shubin Dresner, president and CEO of Island Harvest Food Bank. “We are appealing to the generosity of all Long Islanders to leave a donation of food, no matter how small, next to their mailbox on Saturday, May 13, to help our neighbors who may be struggling just to put food on their tables.”
Food insecurity is a state in which people do not get enough food on a consistent basis to provide the nutrients for active and healthy lives. It can result from the recurrent lack of access to food. More than 316,000 Long Islanders face the risk of hunger every day, according to Island Harvest Food Bank and Feeding America, a national hunger-relief organization. Those facing hunger include adults (often working two jobs), children, senior citizens, and veterans. Unable to make ends meet, they (and their children) are often forced to go without food. Approximately 70,000 individuals seek food assistance in Nassau and Suffolk counties each week through soup kitchens, food pantries and other feeding programs served by Island Harvest Food Bank.
Island Harvest Food Bank is a leading hunger-relief organization that provides food and other resources to people in need. Always treating those it helps with dignity and respect, its goal is to end hunger and reduce food waste on Long Island through efficient food collection and distribution; enhanced hunger-awareness and nutrition-education programs; job training; and direct services targeted at children, senior citizens, veterans, and others at risk of food insecurity. As a result of Island Harvest Food Bank’s dynamic business model, more than 94 percent of expended resources go directly to programs and services that support over 316,000 Long Islanders facing hunger. Island Harvest Food Bank is a lead agency in the region’s emergency response preparedness for food and product distribution, and is a member of Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief organization. Island Harvest is a four-star-rated nonprofit by Charity Navigator, an independent charity watchdog organization.
For more information, visit www.islandharvest.org or www.nalc.org/community-service/food-drive.
