Posting a record food drive

Friday, May 3, 2002 | 2:26 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: May 4, 2002

The Las Vegas chapter of the National Association of Letter Carriers is out to stamp out hunger by crushing last year's food drive record of 675,000 pounds.

Jerry Penn, coordinator of the NALC Branch 2502 food drive next Saturday, has set a goal of collecting one million pounds and having Southern Nevada finish among the top 10 cities in nonperishable food collections.

Last year, under Penn's first-year leadership, Las Vegas finished 15th in what has become the nation's largest one-day food drive.

"Last year, we nearly doubled what we collected in 2000, and since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks people have been very generous in helping others in need," Penn said. "A million pounds comes to about two pounds of food per household, so it is an attainable goal.

"We also are getting more media exposure than ever because this is the 10th annual national food drive."

Mayors of all four neighboring municipalities have shot a public service announcement that will run on area television stations next week.

This will be the 12th Help Stamp Out Hunger food drive in Las Vegas, which was one of the pilot cities to test the program two years before it became a national event.

Last year's success locally was attributed to postal carriers for the first time leaving plastic bags in the mailboxes of the more than 580,000 homes and apartments in the Las Vegas Valley. This year, the Albertson's grocery store chain and Coca-Cola have donated plastic bags that will be distributed Wednesday through Friday.

Those who want to participate in the drive need only fill the bags with canned foods, dry goods, diapers, baby formula and other nonperishable products and leave the bags at their mailboxes with Saturday's outgoing mail.

For the 1,500 area mail carriers who each year return to post offices with trucks filled with donated goods, the feeling of knowing they are helping feed the poor is rewarding. And sometimes the results of the venture are surprising.

"There are a lot of wealthy people on my route in Green Valley, so I have picked up a lot of gourmet items over the years, like canned oysters and premium coffee beans," said Cindie Lindemon, who has been a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier for 16 years, the last 12 in Henderson.

Loretta Brodeur, a mail carrier for 19 years who also has participated in every local letter carrier food drive, said the many senior apartment dwellers in Summerlin to whom she delivers mail really look forward to the drive.

"They ask me all the time what do we most need, then many of them go to the grocery store and buy those items to donate to the drive," Brodeur said. "Of course, many others just clean out their pantries and give items that they had purchased but decide they aren't going to eat."

Brodeur said the most unusual items she has had donated was a can of stuffed grape leaves and two cooked ears of corn. The latter had to be thrown away because only non-prepared, factory-packaged items should be donated.

Penn said the Summerlin Post Office, by far, is the busiest on the day of the drive. Last year, 120,000 pounds of food was brought to that one location.

He said that while letter carriers will accept almost anything, items in glass containers are not recommended because of potential breakage and contamination of other foods.

High protein items such as cans of soup, family-sized canned goods, peanut butter, juices, macaroni and cheese, toilet paper and canned meats are most highly sought, Penn said.

Seventeen local nonprofit agencies will benefit from the food collected, among them the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, Lutheran Services, St. Jude's and some smaller charitable groups such as churches. The donations will be used to put together food baskets for families in need.

Lindemon and Brodeur said on food drive day it usually takes about an hour longer to do their eight-hour routes, for which they are paid. However, both say they and other carriers then join the charitable organization workers in sorting the food, which adds several hours of volunteer work to their day.

This year's local drive will be conducted in cooperation with the Postal Service, United Way and the AFL-CIO. Corporate sponsors are Campbell's Soup Co. and Saturn Retailers.