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Home > Archive > Jul 19, 2007

Another Kind of Delivery
By Stephen Vincent
After spending all the hours it takes to head up the letter carriers food drive – the time spent visiting elementary schools, talking to local media and distributing food drive advertisements to her fellow letter carriers, Stefaney Bishop said one thing makes the time she puts into it all worth it.
“Every bag of food I pick up, I tell myself a little kid will be fed by the food that is in this bag,” Bishop said. “That's what I hope for: that no kid will go hungry in Washington County or anywhere in this country.”
Letter carriers in St. George gathered non-perishable food items to donate to Dixie Care and Share as part of the National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive, May 12. After gathering 85,000 pounds last year, food drive organizers set the goal of accumulating 100,000 pounds this year.
They did just that, officially collecting 101,525 pounds, May 12. That total ranked fifth nationwide among all post offices that have fewer than 99 employees. By the time additional food trickled in, though, the tally had risen to around 105,000 pounds.
The drive supplied the Dixie Care and Share with enough food for two months, said Russell Warr, station manager at the Main Street Post Office.
“Next year, I'm hoping for four months,” Bishop said. “If we can double what we got this year and get the food bank through the summer, that would be excellent.”
Bishop added that the summertime is a critical part of the year for food banks. More children are fed at the Care and Share during the summer months because school is out of session, which means the food programs they rely on during the school year are no longer available.
Also, the food banks thrive during the holiday season, when people's thoughts naturally turn to giving, but food banks are generally forgotten in the hot summer months.
The Care and Share feeds around 2,000 families and 3,600 kids each month, and the need for the food bank has doubled in the last four years, Warr said.
The kids are who Bishop has in mind when she works on the food drive.
“Children who are hungry can't learn, they can't sleep, and they can't grow,” she said.
In preparing for the food drive, postal workers put in a good deal of preparation. They handed out fliers announcing the food drive at elementary schools, which children colored and took home to their parents. They contacted local news outlets to publish announcements. They distributed announcement cards donated by Campbell’s Soups and cartoons drawn by Family Circus' Bil Keane. They also handed out bags for people to fill with donated canned items.
They then collected the food while working their usual routes.
“It's an excellent effort,” Bishop said. “It's not just one person. Every letter carrier in Washington County – the rural carriers, clerks, post office agents – gets involved.”
As the day progressed, the mail carriers dropped off the food to the Care and Share, where 20 to 30 workers were on hand to receive it, Warr said.
“Things move really smoothly,” Warr said. “It's a long day. We usually try to get our carriers off by four or five, but on this day, they're maybe still here at six. It doesn't take us much longer than normal because of the employees' attitude.”
Warr said they had several employees come in and work that day even though it was their day off and they weren't getting paid.
Warr complimented Bishop for her dedication to the food drive.
“She believes in this stuff,” Warr said. “She hates people thinking that we are in competition with the other food drives because she knows it all goes to the same thing. She wants them all to succeed.”
Salt Lake was the only other Utah city to finish in the Top 10 nationally in its division. The Salt Lake postal workers gathered 371,533 pounds of food. Nationally, Buffalo gathered the most, hauling in nearly 2.1 million pounds.
The food drive is the largest one-day food drive in the country and has received two presidential medals of achievement, Warr said, though noting the real credit goes to the community.
“This is a great giving community,” Warr said. “I talked to the guy at Dixie Care and Share, and he told me St. George is the most giving community in the country. This is a great community to be a part of.”

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