This Saturday, most people will enjoy a healthy breakfast, a good lunch and supper. However, there are more than 35.5 million people, including 13 million children, who go hungry on a daily basis.

You can help a little bit with our national hunger issue by leaving a box or bag of nonperishable food items beside your mail box or at your local post office on Saturday, as part of the Stamp Out Hunger National Food Drive.

The drive is sponsored every year by the National Alliance of Letter Carriers, said Curtis Gay, Statesboro letter carrier and organizer of the local branch for the event.

The food drive, in its 24th year, takes place every second Saturday in May in more than 10,000 cities and towns across the nation, he said.

When letter carries pick up the boxes or bags of canned fruits and vegetables, pasta, cereals, canned meat and tuna.

“They also collect the goodness and compassion of their postal customers who participate in the National Alliance of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger National Food Drive, the largest one day food drive in the nation, and probably the world,” he said.

Led by the national and rural letter carriers, other postal employees and volunteers, the efforts has delivered more than one million pounds of food to community food banks and pantries over the past 24 years, according to information Gay provided.

In the Statesboro area, donations rose from 12,000 to 20,000 pounds over the past two years.

“That says a lot about our communities, even in these tough economic times,” he said.

Carriers will collect donations of nonperishable foods left by mailboxes and in post offices Saturday. They will then be delivered to local food banks, shelters and pantries near almost 1,500 branches in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands, he said.

The food drive is also supported by the United States Postal Service, Campbells Soups, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, Feeding America Food Bank Network, United Way of America and its local branches, AFL-CIO Community Services Network, and local sponsors, Gay said.

He reminds people to place the donated items at the mail boxes before your letter carrier arrives Saturday.

Herald reporter Holli Deal Saxon may be reached at (912) 489-9414.