Let’s hope for fine weather on Saturday. Letter carriers throughout East Central Indiana and the entire nation will be collecting food Saturday in an effort to Stamp Out Hunger. Retired letter carriers and community volunteers will help with the national food drive that may well weigh in more than 70 million pounds of food by day’s end.

It is as easy as 1, 2, 3. Take a plastic bag. Put cans of food in the bag. Place the bag by your mailbox before your mail is delivered on Saturday. Your letter carrier will take it from there and see that your donation gets to Second Harvest Food Bank or a local pantry providing food assistance to people in need in your community.

Check with your local postmaster if you would like to lend a hand. Volunteers follow letter carriers to help pick up food and some work at the post office unloading food after it’s collected. Give food or lend a hand — it is a great way to make a difference in your community.

We had a big Saturday at Second Harvest Food Bank out by the Water Bowl in Delaware County this past weekend. More than 180 Comcast employees and family members spent the day helping out. State Rep. Terri Austin of Anderson came over as well and worked with a group packing individual-size packages of Kool-Aid mix into plastic storage bowls. I heard it was one sweet job! 

The Kool-Aid and the shelf-stable NutriSystem entrees that Comcast Care volunteers also packaged will reach thousands of families before the month is out. They will be given out via regular distribution to pantries in the region and through our weekly Tailgate program. Some might be distributed in Elwood on Friday. Rep. Austin is working with State Sen. Tim Lanane, Mayor Taylor and United Way to pull programs together to assist the employees of the plating company that closed last week.

Economic stressors continue to impact the 49,000 people who live in poverty in our region and the 72,000 more living on less than a living wage. While others work on the root causes of poverty, Second Harvest Food Bank focuses on hunger relief. We are happy to report that our first quarter 2008 saw a substantial increase in distribution of food to our region. April saw that trend continue with increased distribution to every county we serve.

It is gratifying to see more food donated by the food industry, more volunteers coming in to help, greater amounts of food getting out to people in need and more people in our community pitching in to support food drives and fundraisers. We appreciate Mayor Sharon McShirley of Muncie and Mayor Dennis Whitesell of Hartford City visiting Second Harvest — political will to end hunger must start at the local level.

We are happy to report that Congress is getting closer to passing a strong nutrition title in the farm bill. That action will ensure that food stamps and other important nutrition programs will be available for struggling residents when they need them.

It takes all of us working together and at different tasks to get the job done. To find out how to you can help end hunger visit our Web site at www.curehunger.org.

Lois Rockhill is executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana. She can be reached at lrockhill@curehunger.org.