Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
If you’ve got a mailbox, you can make a difference this Saturday.
VERONA, Va. (May 6, 2026) – The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank is the local beneficiary of the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, the country’s largest one-day food drive, happening on Saturday, May 9. Residents in the Food Bank’s 25-county service area can help community members living with hunger by leaving non-perishable food donations at their mailboxes for their local letter carriers to pick up.
Last year’s food drive collected almost 92,000 pounds of food, bringing the total to more than 2.5 million pounds collected since 1994. All this community support helps the 1 in 9 individuals in our area who are experiencing food insecurity to put food on the table. This year, the Food Bank wants to keep that momentum going and make sure shelves stay full as summer nears, when many children no longer have access to school meals.
“The annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive is all about neighbors helping neighbors,” said Kari Diener, CEO of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. “These food donations help make sure people and families, right here in central and western Virginia, have the nourishing food they need. The hard work of the letter carriers, along with the community’s generous donations, show how together, we are solving hunger every day.’
Community members can take part in the food drive on Saturday morning by putting non-perishable food donations—no glass containers, please—at their mailboxes for letter carriers to collect. Volunteers at Post Offices around the area will sort and deliver the food to the Food Bank’s locations in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Verona, and Winchester, or to its partner pantries.
A full list of the most needed food items can be found at https://www.brafb.org/event/soh2026/
Community members can also support this food drive by making a financial donation to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank here: give.brafb.org/SOH.
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Media Opportunity: Blue Ridge Area Food Bank and letter carrier representatives will be available during the event. To schedule an interview, please contact Les Sinclair at lsinclair@brafb.org or 434-962-5403. Other media assets are linked here.
About the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank
The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank is the largest hunger-relief organization serving western and central Virginia. Founded in 1981, the Food Bank serves 25 counties and 8 cities through distribution centers in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Winchester, and its headquarters in Verona. Each month, the Food Bank supports an average of 177,000 guest visits, reaching record numbers of Virginians through a network of 400+ community partners—food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and program sites. As a partner food bank of Feeding America®, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank pledges to continue innovating and adapting to secure, store, and distribute more food to more individuals, families, children, and seniors experiencing hunger. For more information, visit www.brafb.org.
About the National Association of Letter Carriers
The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) represents city delivery letter carriers across the country. Its 293,000 members make it the largest of the four unions representing employees of the United States Postal Service. Founded by Civil War veterans in 1889, NALC is among the country’s oldest labor unions. Since launching in 1993, the National Association of Letter Carriers’ annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive has grown into the nation’s largest one-day food drive, helping to fill the shelves of food banks in cities and towns throughout the United States. Donations are collected from postal patrons who leave a bag of nonperishable food next to their mailbox on the second Saturday in May. These donations help replenish food pantry shelves in spring and summer, when holiday food donations are depleted and schools are closing for the summer.
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Contact: Les Sinclair
434-962-5403
lsinclair@brafb.org
www.brafb.org
