Most North Olympic Peninsula mail carriers will join others nationwide in collecting donated food for the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive Saturday.
In every area except Sequim, mail customers are asked to put nonperishable food items in or near mailboxes in Clallam and Jefferson counties for mail carriers to collect during their normal delivery time Saturday.
Sequim postal carriers will conduct a Stamp Out Hunger Day the following Saturday, May 21.
All food collected will be donated to Peninsula food banks.
The event in the Sequim area has been delayed one week so that it does not conflict with Sequim Irrigation Festival activities, said Steve Allen, Sequim postmaster.
Postal customers in the area east of Barr Road to Diamond Point and from the Olympic Mountains to the sea are asked to place food donations in or near their mailboxes Saturday, May 21.
All others are asked to donate this Saturday.
Letter carriers have collected more than 80,000 pounds of food in Port Angeles and Sequim during the past two years. More than 13,000 pounds of food was collected in East Jefferson County in 2009.
More than 49 million Americans live in households where availability of food is uncertain, one in four of which are children, said Jeff Derau of branch 1906 of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
