News Room Archives

Denton, TX (May 9, 2009) - On May 9th, the members of Branch 1367 of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) collected 16,722 pounds of food for the 17th annual “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive benefiting the Denton Community Food Center. Denton residents placed canned vegetables and meats, dry milk, and other non-perishable food items by their mail boxes to be picked up by the U.S. Postal letter carriers on their postal routes. “This year’s drive was much better than last year’s drive,” said Marvin Ruigle, President of Branch 1367, “We raised 1,000 pounds more than last year.”

Tom Newell, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Denton Community Food Center, said that the drive had stalled for the past couple of years until donations suddenly increased last year. This year’s drive was successful in spite of concerns about the failing economy. Newell credits the increase in food donations to the addition of a couple of drop of grocery store off sites established at Kroger on University Drive and at Brookshire’s on I-35.

Approximately 100 volunteers participated in the food drive. “We simply could not have been able to gather and sort thousands of pounds of food without the support, energy, and enthusiastic attitude of all of our community volunteers,” said Brooke Moore, Senior Community Impact Officer for the United Way of Denton County. United Way launched an advertising campaign on their website calling for volunteers and helped coordinate volunteers at the grocery store drop off locations. “Working with United Way was great!” said Ruigle.

The letter carriers also received help from other community partners like Frenchy’s Lawn and Tree Service, DATCU, Sally Beauty Company, Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas, Gateway Church, American Red Cross and the University of North Texas American Humanics.

In an attempt to meet the original 20,000-pound goal, Frenchy offered to extend the Food Drive another couple of days by collecting food at his office located at 301 Dallas Drive, Suite C-1 in Denton, Texas 76205.  “If everyone would just pitch in a couple of cans, we could easily make our goal and Live United in our community,” Frenchy said.