House of Hope CEO Rob Ranieri worked the pallet jacks throughout both shifts during the recent food drive. HOUSE OF HOPE

 

STUART — This year’s Stamp Out Hunger food drive delivered more than 64,000 pounds of food to House of Hope — the equivalent of nearly 54,000 meals for Martin County residents in need.

The drive, conducted May 13, is organized annually by the National Association of Letter Carriers and is the nation’s largest single-day food drive. In Martin County, the drive helps to stock House of Hope’s four Client Choice pantries — Stuart, Hobe Sound, Jensen Beach and Indiantown — with much-needed items such as canned vegetables, soup, tomato products, pasta, cereal, etc. The timing is critical for local residents who are experiencing seasonal unemployment or decreased hours as well as school lunch programs ending for the summer.

House of Hope has many groups and individuals to thank, starting with the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 1690 and the thousands of local residents who put food by their mailboxes to contribute to the drive. The letter carriers collected thousands of donated bags of food from their routes while delivering the mail. Two shifts of Stamp Out Hunger volunteers were stationed at the Palm City, Stuart, Stuart Annex and Hobe Sound post offices to load the collected food into trucks transported by volunteer drivers to the Martin County Fairgrounds.

At the fairgrounds hundreds of volunteers including the following groups sorted more than 32 tons of donated nonperishables: Baird Private Wealth Management, Edgewater Property-Realty, Martin County High School Football Team, Martin County High School Cheerleaders, The Chinese Club from Jensen Beach High School, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, United Way of Martin County’s Leaders United Class of 2017 and House of Hope volunteers.

“I remember my first time (volunteering for Stamp Out Hunger as a freshman),” Macs Burke, a junior back junior at Martin County High School said. “ I hadn’t pictured how big of a deal this was, but you know, I find it to be a really rewarding experience and I will definitely be back again next year.”

In addition to the hard-working volunteers, the daylong event could not happen without support from community-minded sponsors including Amerisweeps, Ready Refresh, Hooks Construction, Waste Management, Impressive Click, Cassidy’s Ice, Stuart Auto Body, Crary Buchanan Attorneys at Law and Brooklyn Joe’s Italian Restaurant.

More information about House of Hope is available online at hohmartin.org or by calling 772.286.4673.

This story is distributed by Treasure Coast Business, tcbusiness.com, a service for the readers and advertisers of Indian River Magazine. Email news of your business at [email protected].