Postal workers to deliver food

On Saturday, U.S. postal patrons, a group that pretty much accounts for everybody, will have an opportunity to participate in what may be the largest coordinated food drive ever. This is the 13th year for the National Association of Letter Carriers’ effort to restock local food banks, and folks are being asked to set canned goods and packaged nonperishable food near their mailboxes to be picked up when the mail is delivered Saturday.

The scale of the effort is fairly awe-inspiring. Nationally, the letter carriers took in more than 70 million pounds of food last year. In northeast Kansas, the numbers also were solid. For example, residents donated 20,000 pounds in Lawrence and 1,200 pounds in Bonner Springs.

I became interested in this food drive after speaking with Alan Hickey, who is the coordinator in Lawrence. The effort takes on greater urgency as food pantries have struggled this year to meet increased need. This spring some area food banks were pretty much tapped out and were particularly in need of high-protein food sources.

Hickey is hoping that donors will think about the nutritional value of their contributions as well as bulk. He cites the combination of canned tuna and a box of Tuna Helper as a relatively inexpensive but high-impact donation.

Other canned meats, canned entrees such as stew or chili, peanut butter and beans also are good sources of protein, and food banks typically struggle to keep them in stock.

Six food banks will share the booty in Lawrence, while the Bonner Springs collections will be taken to Vaughn-Trent Community Services.

Darrel Debusk, the Bonner Springs coordinator, points out that all of the food stays in the community in which it is collected, making this a truly local charity effort.

One of the most impressive things about the food drive is the efficiency of the project. A few years back, the postal service routinely took knocks for being inefficient and cumbersome, bloated by bureaucracy and hamstrung by organized labor, and yet the annual food drive is a model of organizational efficiency.

A member of the National Association of Letter Carriers undoubtedly would emphasize here that this community service project is the brainchild of the postal service union.

And who better to orchestrate a direct charity that draws on the largest segment of the community possible for a social issue as pressing as hunger? The letter carriers have direct access to a nearly universal donor base. Almost everyone gets mail.

In addition, the overhead expenses associated with the food drive are almost nonexistent. The letter carriers can distribute information about the project without, ironically, incurring the cost of postage. Because collection takes place during a letter carrier’s standard route, additional transportation costs are kept low.

Moreover, unlike many charity contributions that are whittled down by administrative costs, 100 percent of the value of this donation is passed through to those who need it.

All of the food collected reaches the food banks immediately. In Lawrence, Hickey said the six food banks will accept the donations on Saturday.

“It’s a pretty neat process we go through to move it all in one day,” he said.