postalnews blog » letter carriers

Letter carriers’ annual food drive once again a success for the hungry

brian — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:15:06 +0000

June 4 — In another successful nationwide food drive, the National Association of Letter Carriers collected 70.2 million pounds of food on May 14, at a time when hunger is a growing problem.

The NALC’s annual one-day drive, largest in the nation, is held on the second Saturday in May in 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam. This was the 19th annual NALC Food Drive to stamp out hunger.

“Six days a week, letter carriers see first-hand the needs in the communities they work in, and we’re privileged to be able to help the needy and to lead an effort that brings out the best in so many Americans,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said. Non-perishable donations residents left near their mail boxes were collected by the nation’s 230,000 letter carriers as they delivered mail.

This was the eighth consecutive drive surpassing 70 million pounds. Last year’s record collection of 77.1 million pounds pushed the total past the one-billion-pound mark, and the total since the drive began in 1993 now stands at 1,130,000,000 pounds. The slight downturn this year is related to the tough economy – which makes the drive all the more important.

About 50 million Americans – including 17 million children – now live in families that lack sufficient food. With most school lunch programs suspended during summer months, millions of children must find alternate sources of nutrition.

“This drive allows letter carriers to help revitalize food banks during difficult summer months when children have no school breakfast or lunch programs to count on," NALC’s Community Service Coordinator Linda Giordano said.

The top five local NALC branch collections: Branch 1477 West Coast Florida Merged (1,770,814 pounds), Branch 599 Tampa, FL. (1,729,382), Branch 458 Oklahoma City, OK (1,485,118), Branch 3 Buffalo, NY (1,383,220), Branch 1100 Garden Grove, CA (1,112,083).

Carriers around the country brought the food from their routes on Saturday May 14 to local food banks, pantries or shelters, including many affiliated with Feeding America, a national partner in the drive. Assisting 1,400 local NALC branches were rural letter carriers and other postal employees, plus members of other unions and civic volunteers.

Other national partners were Campbell Soup Co., the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, Valpak, the U.S. Postal Service, United Way Worldwide, the AFL-CIO and Uncle Bob’s Self Storage.

via NALC ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ National Food Drive.

Nationwide implementation of Delivery Unit Optimization (DUO) set for January 3

brian — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:37:24 +0000

From NAPUS:

December 17, 2010

Today, NAPUS President Bob Rapoza received a written response from Postal Service Vice President of Labor Relations, Doug Tulino to questions and recommendations that were presented by the management associations in the November 30, 2010 consultative-process meeting concerning the Delivery Unit Optimization (DUO) program. The NAPUS requested moratorium, which has now been extended until January 3, 2011, allowed the management associations an opportunity to provide input into the DUO process. Many of the recommendations presented in that meeting are now included in the DUO Guidebook version 1.1.

The DUO Guidebook (version 1.1,) should be reviewed by all Postmasters who are scheduled to become part of the DUO process. Please pay close attention to the Process Steps (pages 5-7) and Process Checklist (pages 8-12) in the attached DUO Guidebook. Copies of the Final Decision letter from the Postal Service and the DUO Guidebook version 1.1 are attached. A dedicated DUO link is currently being added to the NAPUS website and it will contain training material and updates for DUO impacted Postmasters.

USPS Response To Questions and Recommendations

DUO Guidebook Version 1.1

Letter carrier featured on “This American Life”

brian — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:30:38 +0000

From the NALC:

An NALC member was featured on the November 19th episode of National Public Radio’s “This American Life” in a segment entitled “Neighborhood watch.”

The episode highlights the interactions of people in various neighborhoods across the county and how these interactions among members of a particular neighborhood, or lack thereof, make them unique.

The efforts of Fort Lauderdale letter carrier Paul Gereffi, the 2008 NALC Eastern Region Hero of the Year, demonstrate the important role letter carriers have in neighborhoods across the country. Letter carriers continue to be the eyes and ears for communities throughout America; they keep their fingers on the pulse of America, six days a week.

As show host Ira Glass notes, “It’s so common for carriers to stumble onto something during their route – to perform a good deed – that these incidents are a regular feature of the letter carrier association’s monthly magazine.”

Letter carriers do not stand idle but step in and offer their assistance – often risking their own lives – for the good of their communities.

Click the link to hear some of Paul’s story as portrayed on “This American Life.”

Letter carrier goes “beyond the call of duty” to check on customer

brian — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:35:45 +0000

From the Greensboro News & Record:

On Sunday, Sept. 12, Kim Hartsfield, a U. S. Postal Service carrier, called me to check on a relative in Greensboro. She has been the carrier in the College Hill neighborhood for many years and had not seen this man for almost 10 days. She wondered if something was wrong.

She had called police, but they cannot force an entry without a family member’s permission. The man in question is a distant cousin of mine.

We discussed other relatives, and Kim called the man’s brother, who is in a retirement complex. It was established that the man in question was in a medical facility.

For Kim Hartsfield to make this sort of effort goes way beyond normal duty. Her caring for the people on her route speaks well of the dedication of local Postal Service employees. She is to be commended for going beyond the call of duty.

- John Beaman, Greensboro

Letter Carriers’ Food Drive is Today

brian — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:45:53 +0000

WASHINGTON, May 7 — Letter carriers across the country will collect non-perishable food donations Saturday May 8 as they deliver mail along their postal routes in the nation’s largest one-day effort to Stamp Out Hunger.

Donations will be collected along postal routes in more than 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the District of Columbia.

The 18th annual Letter Carriers’ National Food Drive is being conducted by the National Association of Letter Carriers NALC with the assistance of rural letter carriers and other postal employees and volunteers. The postal union is seeking to exceed last year’s record 73.4 million pounds of food delivered to community food banks and pantries. It also anticipates breaking the one billion-pound mark in total donations since the humanitarian effort began in 1993.

NALC President Fredric V. Rolando said the donations from postal customers will help millions of American families who have been hurt by the nation’s lingering economic difficulties. The drive is especially important at this time for families with children who rely on school lunch programs for nutrition, since most of them are suspended during the summer months.

“Food banks and pantries are in dire need this year as more and more families seek assistance to provide sufficient food for their dinner table,” Rolando said. “Many are working families who find that their income simply will not stretch enough to meet all their housing, clothing, medical and nutritional needs.”

The public should leave non-perishable food donations – such as canned meat and fish, soup, cereals, pasta and rice – in a bag near their mailbox on Saturday before their letter carrier arrives. Glass containers and items with expired dates should be avoided. In New York City, residents are asked to take their donations to their local post office.

Over 126 million postcards, sponsored by the Campbell Soup Company and the U.S. Postal Service’s Priority Mail, have been mailed to postal customers to remind them of the drive. Other national partners are the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, Valpak, United Way Worldwide, the AFL-CIO and the Feeding America food bank network.

Connecticut letter carrier loses injury lawsuit against building owner

brian — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:39:36 +0000

Connecticut Law Review reports that a Norwalk letter carrier who has been unable to work since a “large number of individual, key-accessible mail boxes” fell on her foot has lost in her lawsuit against the property owner. Liz Cyr, 45 of Milford claimed she developed “reflex sympathetic dystrophy”, a painful condition, after the accident. A doctor hired by the plaintiff suggested the carrier’s foot problems were more likely the result of “complications from a pre-existing diabetic condition”. According to the Review, the jury seemed to focus on the question of whether there had been notice to the owners of a defect in the mailboxes. While there had been problems with them in the past, repairs had been made, and it was noted that the regular carrier on the route, a different carrier, had not complained about them.

Cyr had sought $1 million in damages- the paper reports that she had been offered $250,000, but declined the offer.

Lucky and the mailman: what happened next…

brian — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:29:24 +0000

If you haven’t read the original newspaper story about Lucky and the mailman, it’s located here.

If you have read it, you know it ended with a bit of a cliff-hanger: did Mr. Donovan get his old route back? Did Lucky ever see him again?

We can now reveal the true answers to those questions: No! and more importantly, YES!

Arthur Donovan apparently didn’t ever get his old route back, but he did retire less than a year after the transfer. And what did he do as soon as he retired? Started visiting his old friend Lucky every day. The story of Arthur and Lucky’s reunion was a national story, just like the original story the year before. This clipping is from a Corpus Christi newspaper.

Massachusetts carrier charged with workers comp fraud

brian — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:15:07 +0000

The following information was released by the office of the Massachusetts Attorney General:

Today, a Gill woman was arraigned on charges she schemed to fraudulently collect over $25,000 in federal workers’ compensation benefits and intimidated a witness. Barbara McComb, age 45, was charged with Larceny by False Pretenses (4 counts) and Witness Intimidation.

On November 19, 2003, McComb was injured in a fall while working as a letter carrier for the United States Post Office (USPS) in Northfield, MA. In December 2003, McComb allegedly started her own business, Long Arm Quilting, out of her home.

According to authorities, McComb’s claim for federal workers’ compensation was accepted by the United States Department of Labor (DOL) in April 2004 and she began receiving benefits in June 2004 through July 2006, including back payments from March 2004 to June 2004. During this time period, McComb allegedly failed to report her self-employment to DOL or the Office of Workers’ Compensation Program (OWCP).

For each of the four claim forms that McComb was required to file with OWCP between March 2004 and July 2006, authorities allege she failed to report any employment, salary or earnings of any kind. According to authorities, in November 2007, McComb allegedly intimidated a former customer who spoke to investigators from USPS regarding McComb’s alleged employment status. The alleged fraudulent activities were initially detected by investigators from the OWCP and USPS who referred the case to the Attorney General’s Office. Authorities allege McComb fraudulently collected payments totaling $25,431.09.

McComb was arraigned today in Greenfield District Court at which time she entered a plea of not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. McComb is due back in court on March 20, 2009, for a pre-trial conference. District Court Judge Arthur F. Haley III presided over the arraignment

The prosecutor assigned to this case is Assistant Attorney General Michael J. Walsh of Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Insurance and Unemployment Fraud Division with assistance from investigator Luke Goldworm of the Attorney General’s Office. The USPS also assisted in this investigation.

GOP campaign ad suggests letter carriers are sexual predators

brian — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:45:19 +0000

Press release:

The head of the 302,000-member National Association of Letter Carriers today assailed a television ad attacking Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire that suggests that U.S. Postal Service letter carriers are possible sexual predators endangering the lives of children on the street.

The television ad, being run by the Republican Governors Association in support of GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, shows a man walking a dog, and then a letter carrier with satchel and mail, leering at young children near an ice cream truck, while in the audio background a woman depicting a mother warns that some convicted sex offenders have not properly registered with law enforcement agencies during the Gregoire administration.

"This television ad is beneath contempt," said NALC President William H. Young. "It is ludicrous and shameful that the Republican Governors Association would stoop so low as to portray America's most trusted government agents in this manner just to pump up a specious political argument against the incumbent governor."

"I demand, on behalf of city letter carriers across the nation, that Republican Governors Association Chair Rick Perry R-TX immediately withdraw this ad from all television outlets and web sites and publicly apologize to all letter carriers for this damaging portrayal of their character," Young added.

Young pointed out that letter carriers are known throughout the country for their many heroic and humanitarian deeds – often coming to the aid of children, their support of charitable organizations, and conducting the nation's largest food drive to feed needy families.

The 302,000-member NALC union represents city delivery letter carriers in all 50 states and U.S. jurisdictions employed by the U.S. Postal Service, along with retired letter carriers.

Video: Letter carrier pleads guilty to hoarding mail

video — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:06:32 +0000

[youtube]3Pofb_ZWw50[/youtube]

WRAL TV Raleigh NC