For 20 years, the Letter Carriers Union has set aside a day each year when they will pick up food donations for area food banks, making possible the largest food drive in the world. Traditionally, this has provided a huge influx of food for Fishline, sometimes more than 20,000 pounds. This year, the numbers were a little smaller, 14,500 pounds collected, but this is still a serious amount of food. Boxes of canned soup, boxed meal dinners, peanut butter and treats, needed this time of year more than any other.
Over 100 volunteers came together to help pull off this gigantic effort, including 17 driver teams which followed established postal routes and collected hundreds of white bags, to large groups of other volunteers who worked at the Post Office dock making sure all the items were sorted and packed in boxes that were then loaded into a waiting semi. Volunteers from the Marines, the Navy, local churches and schools, and area businesses like Zero Gravity became instant friends as they moved with precision and endurance throughout the day.
The Poulsbo Post Office does a great job organizing and executing this massive food drive. Carriers stay longer than usual, picking up hundreds of pounds of food – they seemed so excited when they could see all the food that would be available to those who need it. It truly is a community effort of “neighbors helping neighbors”.