If you want to help the hungry, leave food by mailbox Saturday for annual drive

It’s time to pick up a few more items at the grocery store or sort through your kitchen pantry for the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.

The drive is an easy way to help local food banks. Just leave non-perishable food in bags under or near – but not in – your mailbox before your mail carrier arrives on Saturday. People should not donate food in glass or other breakable containers.

Carriers will pick up the food – expected to be at least 60,000 pounds – as they drop off the mail.

In its 25th year, the event is the largest one-day food drive in the country, as well as in Whatcom County. Collected food will be distributed to food banks in Bellingham, Blaine, Everson, Deming, Ferndale and Lynden.

The food drive is critical this year, according to Mike Cohen, executive director of Bellingham Food Bank.

“Right now, nearly 20 percent of Bellingham utilizes our food bank,” Cohen said. “Sadly, we are one of the busiest food banks in Western Washington and record numbers of families continue to need help.”

Local food banks feed 3,100 families across Whatcom County each week.

This story was originally published May 12, 2017 at 5:00 AM with the headline "If you want to help the hungry, leave food by mailbox Saturday for annual drive."