After two years of maneuvering the pandemic’s hurdles, the Estevan Salvation Army has once again teamed up with Canada Post to host its “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive.
Canada Post mail carriers volunteered to collect more than 900 kilograms of food from their local community in Estevan, Sask., the province’s eighth largest city, about 16 kilometres north of the Canada-U.S. border. The postal carriers then delivered the haul to Salvation Army staff, who prepared it for the charity’s food bank.
“Right now, we’re feeding about 200 people a month with the food bank. And that number is a little high,” Ronza Reynard, an Estevan Salvation Army director, told the local Estevan Mercury newspaper after the June 11 food drive. “But times are tough right now for everybody, and so if people need a little extra help, and they’re accessing the food bank, that’s great. And it’s great that we have people in our community that are able to help us with either food or monetary donations.”
Canada Post volunteers also participated in Stamp Out Hunger drives this spring in Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay, both in Northern Ontario, following cancellations in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.
According to Ontario letter carrier Mike Murphy, who organizes the event in Sault Ste. Marie, his team hopes to spread the Stamp Out Hunger drive to other post offices across Canada in the coming years.
The U.S.-based National Association of Letter Carriers launched the campaign in 1993.