Stamp Out Hunger drive helps provide 54,000 meals in South Dakota

South Dakota’s Stamp Out Hunger food drive helped provide 54,000 meals for Feeding South Dakota, a sharp reminder of how much can come from one familiar action at the curb. Letter carriers collected thousands of pounds of food on May 9, turning neighborhood mail routes into a statewide hunger-relief pipeline.

The annual drive, run by the National Association of Letter Carriers, is held every second Saturday in May and marked its 34th anniversary in 2026. The United States Postal Service says carriers collect donations in more than 10,000 cities and towns across the country, while the union describes Stamp Out Hunger as the nation’s largest all-volunteer one-day food collection effort. Since its launch in 1993, USPS says the campaign has grown into the nation’s largest one-day food drive.

For Food recovery organizations, the appeal is obvious. The donor lift is tiny, the pickup is built into an existing service route, and the system works because the handoff is simple and repeatable. That is the same kind of logic that powers green bag programs: when residents do not have to travel, schedule a drop-off, or learn a complicated process, participation becomes part of the routine. For staff and volunteers, that simplicity only works when the behind-the-scenes logistics are tight enough to keep food moving quickly from doorstep to pantry.

Feeding South Dakota, the state’s largest hunger-relief organization, serves all 66 counties. The group says food and fund drives are a critical part of its mission and can be hosted by any group of dedicated people, a sign of how much its work depends on community partners as well as its own staff and volunteers. A one-day campaign like Stamp Out Hunger can create a burst of collection, but it also creates the follow-through work of sorting, weighing and distributing donations before they lose value.

The national effort traces back to 1991 discussions involving Vincent R. Sombrotto, Joseph Velasquez and Postmaster General Anthony Frank. The first national drive collected more than 11 million pounds of food, then a one-day U.S. record, with more than 220 union branches involved. That history helps explain why a single Saturday in South Dakota can still produce a result with statewide reach, and why route-based food recovery remains one of the most efficient models in the nonprofit toolbox.