Postal food drive takes place Saturday

It's food drive time again for post office workers.

The National Association of Letter Carriers, the U.S. Postal Service and other partners ask residents to donate nonperishable items Saturday for collection. This is the 25th anniversary of the food drive, a national effort that helps millions of Americans put food on the table, according to a news release Sunday.

The Stamp Out Hunger food drive has become the nation's largest single-day food drive, the release said. In 2016, Americans donated 80.1 million pounds of food. That was the 13th consecutive year of at least 70 million pounds of food collected by letter carriers, bringing the grand total to 1.5 billion pounds, since the drive began in 1993.

“We're asking residents for their support to help make this another successful year,” Postmaster Kathryn Harris said in a statement.

Residents are encouraged to leave a sturdy bag of items such as canned soup, canned vegetables, peanut butter, pasta, rice and cereal next to their mailbox before mail delivery Saturday. Letter carriers will collect the donations and take them to local food banks.