Leave some food, get some mail.
The annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive will take place Saturday, May 9, in neighborhoods across Wayne County.
Residents are encouraged to leave nonperishable food in a bag near their mailbox. While on their routes, letter carriers will gather donations and take them to the post office that day.
Customers also can deliver donations directly to local post offices on May 9. In Richmond, donations should be taken to the loading dock.
National Association of Letter Carriers organizes the drive to collect nonperishable foods to benefit local pantries.
The event, always the second Saturday in May, is the nation’s largest one-day food drive.
More than 1.94 billion pounds of food have been collected since the event went nationwide in 1993. All donations stay local.
This year’s recipients of donations given in Richmond will be Gateway Hunger Relief Center, Community Food Pantry, Circle U Help Center, Gleaners Mobile Pantry and Northside Church of Christ.
Eric Tegeler, who organizes the Richmond drive, said just less than 5,000 pounds of food were collected last year in the city.
A pilot collection took place in 10 cities in October 1991. While gathering feedback, organizers learned that food pantry leaders felt late spring would be the best time for the collection. They said most food banks begin running out of the donations received during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays by that time each year.
Local post offices can provide more information about their collections. Contact information is available at tools.usps.com/locations/.
A version of this article appeared in the May 6 2026 print edition of the Western Wayne News.