Vermont letter carriers to collect food for hungry
8:10 AM, May. 13, 2011
Written by Molly Walsh, Free Press Staff Writer
Vermont letter carriers hope their load is a little heavier Saturday. They’re urging residents of the state to leave a donation of nonperishable food in or beside their mailboxes to be collected by postal workers taking part in a one-day food drive.
The annual Stamp Out Hunger event brought in 77 million pounds of food across the country last year, including about 35,000 pounds in north-central Vermont. The food is delivered to organizations such as the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf in Burlington, where people connected with the drive gathered Thursday to stump for the event.
Going door to door, letter carriers get a sense of how people are doing, and some of them are hungry, said Sandra Sonntag, a letter carrier who serves as food drive coordinator for U.S. Postal Service branch 521. “We see a lot of poverty. We see a lot of hard-working Vermonters working two jobs. … They need a little extra help. ”
The canned goods, boxed cereals, pasta and other nonperishables that are collected by postal workers such as Sonntag will be carried off and loaded into the trucks that carry the mail. The donations will be delivered to food shelves and other organizations that provide hot meals and groceries to the needy.
Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf Director Rob Meehan said the annual event is an enormous help. “We want not just this food shelf but all the food shelves around Vermont and New York to get an influx of food Saturday.”
Demand at the Burlington food shelf has increased 20 percent in the past three years, Meehan said. The weak economy is making it more difficult for working people to pay their bills — from child care to rent to utilities — and many people are still out of work. Spiking gas prices aren’t helping, he added. “It’s really making it hard for families.”
A stream of people came in and out of the doors of the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf on Thursday morning. Some used wheelchairs, some pushed children in strollers, some didn’t speak English.
Matthew Skinner loaded bread, chicken and canned goods into a box. The food will help supplement what he and his wife buy with food stamps, he said, and feed some of the other people they live with in tents at a homeless encampment on the outskirts of Burlington. “This here will help more than just us,” said Skinner, who said he recently moved to Burlington from California to assist various family members.
There’s a real need for food donations, Skinner said. “It’s very important to everybody. I mean with the times the way they are, money is hard, and people could really use it now.”
He’s unemployed but hopes that will soon change. “I’m out looking for work now,” Skinner said. He’s open to whatever job might be out there. “Pretty much anything that comes along, I’m applying for — from stocking shelves to construction,” he said.
The amount of food that people donate to the U.S. Postal Service food drive is impressive, Meehan said. “It speaks volumes to what we can do as a nation when we want to put ourselves to the task.”
Contact Molly Walsh at 660-1874 or
