Letter carrier food drive sees mixed results, with some families unable to give

Jul 02, 2023

Margaret's Pantry in Holyoke relies a lot on donations it receives during the annual Postal Service food drive. This year, the amount received isn't going to stretch as far.

"In 17 years it was probably the worst food drive we have had," said Brenda Lamagdeleine, manager of Margaret's Pantry in Holyoke. "It isn't that people in our community don't want to help. It is that they can't help."

The rising cost of food has left pantry clients struggling. But families that may also donate once a year at the drive also face rising food, grocery and tax bills and just don't have that extra to give, she said.

In the early 1990s, the National Association of Letter Carriers began working with food pantries across the country to run a drive on the second Saturday in May. Typically, each post office works with one or more pantries to deliver food that people leave at their mailboxes.

This year, directors at multiple pantries across Western Massachusetts are reporting mixed results. While collections were down in Chicopee and Holyoke, Springfield's Open Pantry received nearly the same amount. The Northampton Survival Center said it is close to receiving the 20,000 pounds of food it had hoped.

"It is extremely important to the pantries. They rely on it every year," said Andrew Morehouse, director of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. His group supplies 160 pantries across the region with food, 94% of it for free, and the rest at reduced rates.

The drive was more important this year because all pantries are contending with inflation, Morehouse said. They also face a drop in supplies from the federal government and an increased public need, because COVID emergency allotments of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits ended in April.

Still collecting

Not all food collected by the letter carriers has been tallied. Some donations that were put out late Saturday were not collected until Monday. Final totals are not expected until later in the week, said Steve Doherty, communications specialist for the northeast region of the US Postal Service.

While Lamagdeleine said she knows donations are still trickling in, she could tell by Saturday afternoon the collections were lower than usual. "It was disappointing. It is one of our biggest food drives and it is supposed to hold us over to September, when more donations start coming in," she said.

Like a lot of pantries, households are allowed to visit the pantry once a month to receive supplies. In April, Margaret's Pantry provided 625 families, or about 1,500 people, with groceries to help them make ends meet.

Lorraine's Soup Kitchen and Pantry in Chicopee received about 30% fewer donations in the drive than the previous year. It began a mobile pantry about a year ago, bringing food to 14 neighborhoods once a month. The need is growing, said Kim Caisse, director of the agency.

"It went OK but it didn't go as well as past years. We are very grateful for everything we did get," she said.

The Springfield Open Pantry, which provides emergency food to nearly 2,400 people a month, received about 1,820 pounds of food from the drive, said Michael Akers, program director.

"It was a little less than last year, but it was pretty close," he said.

One of the things Akers likes about the postal workers food drive is that it reaches out to everyone in the community. Anyone who receives mail has an easy way to help, if they can.

"Any donation for us is always welcome," he said.

Other pantry officials echoed that. But they agreed monetary donations make the biggest difference, because they can use money to buy food as cheaply as possible. Even if they run out of a staple, such as peanut butter, and have to buy from a grocery store, they research to find sales and deals.

Pantry staff say they need some things that the federal government typically provides, such as tuna fish and canned chicken. Other helpful items are peanut butter, rice, canned fruits, soup and vegetables, tomato products and beans.

"Soup has been hard to get and peanut butter — and I can't tell you the last time I’ve had to pay for tuna fish, but I have to now," said Lamagdeline, about the Holyoke pantry.

Northampton's success

This year was the first time the Northampton Survival Center participated in the postal drive in at least three years, due to the pandemic and then a lack of storage space and volunteers to handle donations.

Heidi Nortonsmith, executive director of the center, worked with postal workers mainly in Northampton, Florence and Leeds and before the event purchased 8,500 bags and inserted fliers to leave in mailboxes across the city.

"I noticed a lot of bags are particularly full this year," she said.

One of the benefits of the drive is it provides things the pantry does not usually purchase or receive from the food bank, giving clients some variety. For example, she noticed someone donated a few cans of lentil soup. Another gave a large bottle of extra virgin olive oil that is expensive, Nortonsmith said.

The drive comes at a time when pantry shelves are low and employees and volunteers are preparing for a summer surge. That means donations are particularly welcome, she said.

"People think of hunger more in the winter. But hunger is pronounced in the summertime partly because schools are on break, so kids are not getting free lunch and breakfast," she said.

While the Northampton Survival Center will have enough supplies for a while, the one thing it will need is extra help, since many volunteers go on vacation during the summer, she said.

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