Americans donated a record 77.1 million pounds of nonperishable food to help ‘Stamp Out Hunger' in their communities this year in the annual Letter Carriers National Food Drive, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) union announced today.  NALC President Fredric V. Rolando said 77,132,180 pounds of food were collected in the drive and delivered to local food banks, pantries and shelters to help needy families. It is the nation's largest one-day effort to combat hunger. The results of the May 8 effort easily eclipsed the previous record, set last year, of 73.4 million pounds.

Approximately 25,000 pounds, or 12 and a half tons of non-perishable items, was collected from Forsyth County residents in zip codes 30040, 30041 and 30028.  This was a significant increase from last year, when 1 ton of food was donated.  Nine local food pantries benefited from the collected items.  Abba House, Compassionate Hand's Ministry at Freedom Tabernacle Church, Cumming First United Methodist Church, First Christian Church, L.A.M.P. Ministries, No Longer Bound, St. Joseph Food Pantry at St. Brendan's Church, The Place of Forsyth County and Unseen Ministries Food Bank all received food from the drive.

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. "Despite the lingering effects of the recession, postal customers came through again this year in the continuing fight against hunger in America," Rolando said. "Our members and the thousands of rural letter carriers and other volunteers were proud to deliver the generous donations from millions of caring citizens who wanted to help needy families in their communities."

The food was collected by letter carriers as they delivered mail along their postal routes in over 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states and U.S. jurisdictions.