Pastor Dale Toltzman said that this project represents the kind of partnerships that keep the food pantry in operation. Postal patrons hung blue bags of donated food on their mailboxes for mail carriers to collect. On average, the carriers collected 400-500 pounds of food from each route. Quantities collected were so large that carriers had to drop off food at the pantry in the middle of some routes.

Food pantry volunteers were ready and waiting from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. to receive the donations. After each postal bin was weighed, the food was sorted and stocked by 12 volunteers.

While the 4,800 pounds from this project is certainly lot of food, it must be noted that Living Faith Food Pantry distributes more than 6,000 pounds to local households each week.

Living Faith Food Pantry hopes to receive a grant from Second Harvest in the next few weeks that will help to increase its capacity. Toltzman said their new goal in the grant proposal is to work with area schools and service organizations to reach many of the children who are coming to school hungry every day. The grant will provide matching funds to pantries that can find new donors to support new outreach projects such as this. More information on this project will be made available in the next 30 days.