Food drive to benefit SERVE

Paper or plastic.

It doesn’t matter to the National Association of Letter Carriers. All they care about is collecting as many bags of groceries as they can on their routes this weekend.

The letter carriers, better known as mailmen and women, will hold a food drive this Saturday to benefit Action in the Community Through Service and Securing Emergency Resources through Volunteer Efforts.

Donating food is a simple process, explained Dale Cornett, acting post office manager of the Prince William branch,

?On Saturday, they can bag up food, any kind of non-perishable food, and leave it at their mailbox,? Cornett said of postal customers who wish to contribute.

?For the people that have the mailboxes at their door they can either hang it from the mailbox or put it on their porch, right under the mailbox.

?For the ones that have curbside boxes, they can just put it out by their mail boxes out by the road and the ones that have cluster boxes, they can just put it right buy the cluster boxes and the letter carriers will pick it up as they go around and deliver the mail,? Cornett said.

After the letter carriers have collected all of the food locally, they will take it to their various branches around Prince William County and Manassas, said Tom Gillespie, union shop steward.

The letter carriers have been running the annual food drives for the better part of two decades and the charities have become dependent on the contributions, Gillespie said.

?I know with ACTS (Action in the Community Through Service), this is a huge percentage of their food donation for the year. So it’s important to them,? Gillespie said.

Staff writer Keith Walker can be reached at (703) 878-8063.