POSTAL PATRONS DELIVER WITH FOOD DONATIONS.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - Volunteers from the Santa Clarita Valley Food Pantry worked up an appetite Saturday afternoon as they unloaded a steady stream of postal trucks carrying donations for the letter carriers' annual food drive.

Coordinating the effort for the Santa Clarita main post office was carrier Glenn Wood, who spent his day off helping rural route carriers collect bags of contributions for the 13th annual drive.

``The walking routes are the most difficult,'' Wood said. ``The carrier sees the sack of food on the porch, which they carry to the curb. Then they have to drive their route again to pick up the bags. It's double the effort, so I went out and drove the routes early to help out.''

Wood met one man on his travels who brought home the importance of the annual drive and reminded him why he volunteered.

``His regular carrier had already picked up a bag, and he saw me driving slowly to pick up other bags. He asked me to wait, telling me he had more to give,'' Wood said. ``He brought several more sackfuls out of the house and didn't tell me specifics, but said he could relate to the homeless and those down on their luck.''

As the trucks came in, food was loaded into canvas gurneys or hampers. Fully loaded, the gurneys hold approximately 500 pounds, which helped organizers keep a running tally of donations.

``I think it was light compared to last year,'' said carrier Andres Colocho, who delivers in Saugus, as volunteers Garth Eckert, 13, and Mitchell Hermann, 13, helped him unload his truck.

Soon, tables for sorting were crowded with boxes and bags of pastas, instant breakfast foods, peanut butter, canned fruits and vegetables, canned meat and drink mixes. A first for the collection was a six pack of Miller Lite beer, which pantry officials assured carriers would not be distributed in clients' food bags.

More than 100 carriers participated in the collection from the Santa Clarita main office, according to delivery supervisor David Meiser.

Donations from the main office, which serves Valencia, Saugus and Castaic and the Newhall collection center on The Old Road, were being directed to the SCV Food Pantry, while donations collected at the Golden Valley Annex, which serves Canyon Country, were being directed to another area food bank.

Last year, Santa Clarita letter carriers collected 22 tons of food, a three-ton increase over the 2003 collection. The local food bank serves 3,200 clients a month, 51 percent of them children. The pantry also assists 130 senior citizens every month.

The National Association of Letter Carriers food drive involves more than 10,000 cities and towns across the country in an attempt to collect food for charitable food banks. It is the largest one-day food drive in the nation.

In 1993, the drive was established as a national effort to be conducted on the second Saturday in May. That year, letter carriers collected 11 million pounds of food. In 2004, more than 70 million pounds of food were collected. Over the last 12 years, more than a half-billion pounds of nonperishable items have been collected.

Holding the collection in late spring was agreed upon to suit the needs of food banks across the nation because it is when food banks run out of the donations collected during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. It's also a critical time for food banks because free lunches provided by schools are no longer available during summer break.

Carol Rock, [phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(color) Letter carrier Ranu Junprung sorts through some of the food items she collected Saturday in Santa Clarita during the annual National Association of Letter Carriers food drive.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News