The National Association of Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive will begin Saturday, May 14.

This year will mark the 30th anniversary of this event. Letter carriers walk through the community every day, often coming face to face with a sad reality for too many — hunger.

Each year on the second Saturday in May, letter carriers across the country collect non-perishable food donations from postal customers.

These donations go directly to local food pantries to provide food to people in their community who need help.

Participating in this year’s letter carrier Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive is simple. Just leave a non-perishable food donation in a bag by your mailbox Saturday, May 14 and the letter carrier will do the rest.

Over the course of its 29-year history, the drive has collected more than 1.88 billion pounds of food, thanks to a postal service universal delivery network that spans the entire nation, including Puerto Rico, Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands.

The need for food donations is great. Currently, more than 42 million Americans are unsure where their next meal is coming from. More than 12 million are children who feel hunger’s impact on their overall health and ability to perform in school, and nearly 5.2 million seniors 60 and older are food insecure, with many who live on fixed incomes often too embarrassed to ask for help.

The postal food drive’s timing is crucial. Food banks and pantries often receive the majority of their donations during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons. By springtime, many pantries are depleted, entering the summer low on supplies at a time when many school breakfast and lunch programs are not available to children in need.