On May 14, letter carriers in more than 10,000 cities and towns across America will deliver much more than mail when they walk and drive along their postal routes. They will also collect the goodness and compassion of their postal customers participating in the 19th annual National Food Drive to “Stamp Out Hunger,” the largest one-day food drive in the nation.

The efforts of letter carriers represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers (AFL-CIO), with the help of rural letter carriers, other postal employees and numerous other volunteers has resulted in delivery of over one billion pounds of donations to community food banks and pantries over the past 18 years, including 77.1 million in 2010.

Letter carriers will collect non-perishable food donations left at mail boxes and in post offices for delivery to local community food banks, pantries, and shelters. Nearly 1,500 local NALC branches in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam are involved in the drive.

Campbell Soup Company, the major corporate sponsor, supplies postcards, magazine and newspaper advertisements, and will earmark an additional one million pounds of canned food to the drive. Additional media support comes from Valpak Direct Marketing which promotes the drive on over 44 million envelopes delivered to postal customers.

The drive also relies on the support of the U.S. Postal Service, National Rural Letter Carriers Association, the United Way Worldwide, AFL-CIO’s Community Services Network, Feeding America, and Uncle Bob’s Self Storage. Generous support is also provided from Family Circus cartoonists Bil and Jeff Keane, who create a special cartoon to promote the drive.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.