Adele Yoshikawa doesn’t just deliver mail she spreads smiles to every customer on her route.
"Being a mail carrier, the customers almost become like your second family," she says.
Saturday, she helped spread that cheer statewide by participating in the nation’s largest one-day food drive to help "Stamp Out Hunger."
"Last year we collected over 565,000 pounds of food nationwide, the past 18 years we actually collected over 1-billion pounds of food," she says.
Yoshikawa is hoping to top last year, collecting blue bags filled with canned goods left on mailboxes and on street curbs.
"With the economy being so bad, right now we’re giving customers hope that maybe thru the drive they will be able to not worry about putting food on their table, they have somewhere to go," she says.
The Hawaii Foodbank distributes nearly a million-pounds of food to people in need every month.
Volunteers with Saturday’s drive are making sure every can is counted.
"And today at our post office, you gotta see, since 8 a.m. this morning we had volunteers from my family, all the way down to the Marine Base and kids at the youth center," says Yoshikawa.
Volunteers including 13-year-old Emily Watanabe.
"Just shows how much people care," she says.
Everyone working hand-in-hand in a human assembly line to box up bags of food goods including much needed meat.
"If you have the strength, if you have the money, if you have the opportunity always help the community, always give back," says Mike Senatus, volunteer.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
