KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Friday, postal workers in the Kansas City metro area began their annual efforts to help those going hungry in Kansas City.
The U.S. Postal Service kicked off the ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ food drive. Postal workers will collect canned goods while on their mail routes Saturday, May 11. Last year they collected more than 70 million pounds of food. The program is in its 21st year, which is also driven by the National Association of Letter Carriers, Harvesters Community Food Network, Price Chopper and Campbell’s Soup.
Another program fighting hunger in Clay and Platte counties is the Northland Childhood Hunger Initiative, formed in 2009. Chris Evans, executive director, said they chose to use Harvesters BackSnack program to feed elementary-aged children as their starting point. The program has expanded from 600 in 2009 to 2,800 at the end of this school year. Harvesters is providing some funding for the expansion, but the group has raised over $750,000 in the past three years to expand the program. This allows for larger and more immediate increase in the number of children served, as Clay and Platte county are just two of the 26 counties Harvesters impacts.
Each BackSnack is a shelf stable pack of food for one child for a weekend, for the 33 weeks of a school year. It costs $250 for each child, per year.
Learn more about the program by watching this video:
