The St. Johns Clinton County Letter Carriers food drive was a big success with a record food collection weighing in at 6980 lbs. This years collection surpassed any previous years food drive by over 4000 lbs., Nationally Americans donated a record 77.1 million pounds of non-perishable food to help ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ in their communities this year The results of the May 8 effort easily eclipsed the previous record, set last year, of 73.4 million pounds. The 18th annual drive boosted the total donations collected since the drive began in 1993 to more than 1 billion pounds — 1,059,800,000 pounds.
The food collected locally was donated to St. Johns Sr. Center, Mt. Hope Food pantry, and the Department of Human Services.
The volunteers helping with the pick up of the food included the St. Johns Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, two postal retirees Gary Brown and Marv Arntz and his wife Nancy, and three Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart High School Students Andrew Mumford, Nicole Ganong, and Tara Throop.
A special thanks to area businesses Harr’s Jewelers and Ryan’s Road House Restaurant for the use of their electronic signs to advertise. Also a special thanks to St. Johns Kroger Food Store for donating 3500 bags to collect food in and for allowing us to park a postal vehicle on site for food collection that Saturday. Thanks also to Bruno’s Bar for their generous donations.
Tara Throop, Andrew Mumford, and Nicole Ganong volunteered to man the National Letter Carrier’s food drive van at Kroger’s over Mothers’ Day weekend.
The biggest thank you goes out to the St. Johns area residents for their generosity in donating a record amount of food. The St. Johns city and rural carriers would like to thank all their customers and the Businesses who helped make the 2010 food drive the best ever. The St. Johns Post Office has set its sights on passing the 7000 lb mark for the 2011 food drive. Thank you, St. Johns.