Letters to the Editor

Food Drive

Saturday, May 13th marks the 31st anniversary of one of America’s great days of giving – the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food drive.

Letter carriers walk through the community every day, often coming face to face with a sad reality for too many, hunger.

So, each year on the second Saturday in May, letter carriers across the country collect non-perishable food donations from our customers. These donations go directly to local food pantries to provide food to people in Billings who need our help.

Over the course of its 30-year history, the drive has collected well over 1.82 billion pounds of food, thanks to a postal service universal delivery network that spans the entire nation, including Puerto Rico, Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands.

The need for food donations is great. Currently, more than 35 million Americans are unsure where their next meal is coming from. More than twelve million are children who feel hunger’s impact on their overall health and ability to perform in school. And nearly 5.2 million seniors over age 60 are food insecure, with many who live on fixed incomes often too embarrassed to ask for help.

Our food drive’s timing is crucial. Food banks and pantries often receive the majority of their donations during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons. By springtime, many pantries are depleted, entering the summer low on supplies at a time when many school breakfast and lunch programs are not available to children in need.

Participating in this year’s Letter Carrier Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive is simple. Just leave a non-perishable food donation in a bag by your mailbox Saturday, May 13, 2023 and your letter carrier will do the rest. With your help, letter carriers and the US Postal Service have collected over 1.82 billion pounds of food in the United States over the 30 years as a national food drive. Please help us in our fight to end hunger, as we celebrate our 31st anniversary year in America’s great day of giving.

Larry Brown

Ineffective Gov’t

I just looked back at the Letters to Editor I have written this past year and noticed how repetitive they are. All of them concern the ineffectiveness of our city government in Long Beach: I keep writing the same thing, because the same thing keeps happening.

And now we will all watch another episode unfold as the shelter at Community Hospital closes, and its residents are either welcomed back to the streets or shuffled off to yet another three-month-long stint at the next temporary shelter.

This ongoing piecemeal attempt at solving problems has also been the modus operandi of the mismanagement of the Queen Mary: a series of metaphorical Band-Aids placed over the holes in the hull of a literal sinking ship. Why don’t they just put a bow on it and give it away to John Molina, the way they did with Community Hospital?

When will the Rube Goldberg machine of the Long Beach government stop wasting taxpayer money and time in its impractical, inefficient, performative, career-minded politics and get on with the citizens’ business? Citizens! Remember us?

Merry Colvin