Letter carriers across Iowa will be doing more than delivering the mail today (Saturday) — they’ll also be picking up donations for food pantries. Harley Tapper, the postmaster in Webster City, says the annual Stamp Out Hunger day was started 22 years ago. “It’s the largest (food drive) in the country…and millions of pounds of food get collected and distributed,” Tapper says. Nationwide, letter carriers collected 74.4 million pounds of food items during last year’s Stamp Out Hunger day. Iowans can help the effort by leaving canned food for their mail carrier to pick up.

“We ask for people to put non-perishable food items in a bag by their mailbox or mail receptacle,” Tapper says. Since the National Association of Letter Carrier’s food drive began in 1992, nearly 1.3 billion pounds of food has been collected.

(Radio Iowa)