Sandy Curry, director of Community Partnership in Butler, stands by one of the pallets of food Monday, May 13, which was collected through the Stamp Out Hunger drive by U.S. Postal Service employees Saturday. Eddie Trizzino/Butler Eagle 5/13/24

BUTLER TWP — Community Partnership in Butler made quick work of sorting food donations yielded from the U.S. Postal Service’s Stamp Out Hunger campaign Saturday, May 11, but it’s because the donations weren’t as plentiful as in years past.

Community Partnership receives all the donations postal workers collect from people on their routes the second Saturday in May and distributes the food to the 33 county food pantries it serves.

Sandy Curry, director of Community Partnership, said the donations would take up only about four pallets in the organization’s storage this year, and the number of clients of food pantries in the county is static.

“The numbers have gone down a little bit, but they are still above 10,000 (people) a month,” Curry said. “My first year here doing a post office food drive was in 2018, and we had 26 (pallets) stacked. And we’re going to have four, probably, after we sort through everything and get rid of everything we can’t give out.”

The Stamp Out Hunger campaign is led by members of the National Association of Letter Carriers with help from rural letter carriers, other postal employees and volunteers, according to a news release from the postal service. The drive has delivered more than 1.82 billion pounds of food during the past 30 years, the post office said.

Donations ranged from nonperishable items like canned soup and vegetables to snacks and paper products. Curry said some donations are placed on the agency’s emergency shelves, and food pantry representatives visit the storage area each month to pick out additional items from donations.

Curry said the emergency shelf — meant for any person going through a food emergency — was cleaned out much of last year, but it has been restocked recently thanks to donations.

The number of food pantry clients in Butler County fluctuates throughout the year, but Curry said the number remains relatively steady at 10,000 clients. She said an increase in food prices could be responsible for the recent influx of food pantry clients — and a reason behind the dearth of donations to Stamp Out Hunger this year.

“It was 15,000 in September ... then it started to go back down over Christmas, but then SNAP benefits income eligibility increased, so we kind of saw a dip in the pantry numbers,” Curry said. “Just a little over 8,000 was the lowest, but it was back up over 10,000 in March.

“I think it’s just people can’t afford to put things out anymore, because if you have it at home, you’re going to eat it.”