SEQUIM — More than 11,500 pounds of food and $380 in funds were donated to the Sequim Food Bank for the 24th annual Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.
The amount collected Saturday is just shy of the 12,000 pounds collected last year, but it might come close given that donations were still arriving as of Monday, said Stephen Rosales, Sequim Food Bank board president.
“This [drive] saves us from having to buy a lot of stuff,” he said.
The nonprofit received about $300 worth of peanut butter, which is one of the most valuable and sought-after items, along with chili, pasta and canned tuna, chicken, soups and beans.
“We’ll go through that much [peanut butter] in about a month,” Rosales said.
For the past 24 years, on one day in May, letter carriers collect food bank donations from U.S. Postal Service customers countrywide.
The Sequim carriers take donations a week later than other communities so as to keep from competing with the Sequim Irrigation Festival.
The annual drive has become the largest one-day food drive in the nation.
Many helped
All of those helping in Sequim, from the Postal Service employees to Rotarians and members of both the Sequim Seventh-day Adventist Church and Olympic View Church of God, were “incredible,” Rosales said.
Averaging between 80 and 100 clients each time it’s open, the Sequim Food Bank provides between 80,000 and 90,000 pounds of food monthly to those within the Sequim community, Rosales said.
Food bank hours
The Sequim Food Bank, 144 W. Alder St., is open three days a week: from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays and from 9 a.m. to noon Fridays and Saturdays.
For more information, visit www.sequimfoodbank.org or call 360-683-1205.
A peanut butter drive in Sequim is slated for June 10-12 at Walmart, QFC and Safeway.
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Alana Linderoth is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at alinderoth@sequimgazette.com.
