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Mail staff to collect food bags Saturday
By CHAUNDRA PERKINS ST. PETERSBURG -- Expect to see bulging bags of groceries squeezed beside the crates of letters and packages in your mail carrier's van this Saturday. That is the day of the 10th annual "Letter Carrier Food Drive," the largest one-day food drive in the country. People can feed the hungry by placing nonperishable food items in bags near their mailboxes. Local mail carriers and a host of volunteers will take care of the rest. "They can leave as much as they want," said Joe Henchen, letter carrier and coordinator of the St. Petersburg food drive. "We'll pick it up, even if we have to get it on Monday." Boy Scouts on bicycles and volunteers in vehicles will take the food to the post offices, where it will be sorted and then shipped to food banks. Branch 1477, the local of the National Association of Letter Carriers, which includes St. Petersburg, Largo, Indian Rocks Beach, Dunedin, Seminole and Pinellas Park, is always one of the top 10 branches in the country. Last year, local carriers collected 1.2-million pounds of food, coming in second to Long Island, N.Y. But Henchen said the competition is not what motivates him. "My goal is always to pack the shelves in the St. Petersburg Free Clinic," he said. All of the food collected in the drives goes to local food banks. About 100 local agencies sign up to receive food from the St. Petersburg Free Clinic's food bank, said Kelli Caputo, the director of volunteers and special events at the clinic. Two of those agencies are the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul. "It is important that people know this is happening on Saturday and place their food at their mailbox," Caputo said. "Our food bank is phenomenal," she said. "The bottom line is ... we do disperse to whoever is going without."
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
