Valley United Way Helped to Stamp out Hunger in the 21st Letter Carriers Food Drive
A total of 29 Valley United Way Youth Leaders helped unload mail trucks full nonperishable food items at the Spooner House in Shelton for the 21st annual Letter Carriers Food Drive. Youth Leaders and community volunteers also helped unpack the food, sorted it, and stored it in an efficient means to process the food.
The annual Letter Carriers Food Drive is one of the biggest single-day food drives in the country, and members of Valley United Way’s Youth Leadership Program have been participating for more than two decades. Letter carriers pick up non-perishable food items from postal patrons throughout the Valley towns as they make their normal Saturday deliveries. The mail trucks collect the food at their local post offices and deliver what they have collected to local food banks.
Patricia Tarasovic, Director of Valley United Way’s Volunteer Center said, “This food drive is a great project and a perfect opportunity for our Youth Leaders to get involved in volunteerism in the Valley Community, which allows them to grow stronger as a group.” The Letter Carriers Food Drive is the first major project students are involved in as newly elected Youth Leadership members.
Youth Leader, Dan Mott, shared his sentiment about the food drive. Dan said, “This food drive was a great time to bond with fellow leaders while helping those in need. Our job as Youth Leaders was to unload the mail trucks filled with food and load them on to the shelves of the Spooner house in Shelton, CT. It was great to see each and every Youth Leader could come out for such a great event. It was amazing to see how much the community cares and how much food was collected at the end of the day. There are so many families and people in the surrounding area that need food. It is a real honor to be in such a great group of people that makes a definite impact in the community!”
Valley United Way would like to thank the Letter Carriers and all those who donated food for being the true heroes of this remarkable one day food drive - the largest one day food drive in the country.
The Youth Leadership Program is made possible through the generous support of the Raymond P. Lavietes Foundation which provides core funding.
