The Albert Lea Branch 718 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, along with the rural carriers, will participate once again in the 27th annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive on Saturday. This is the 25th year the Albert Lea branch has taken an active role in this food drive, the largest one-day food drive in the nation.

Nationally, last years food drive collected nearly 72 million pounds of nonperishable food, raising the total amount of donations picked up over the quarter-century history of the drive to almost 1.7 billion pounds.

Locally, the Albert Lea carriers collected 16,486 pounds last year. That total was just 84 pounds less than the total collected in Austin, in what has become a friendly competition between the two cities.

The competition between Albert Lea and Austin goes back to 2007 and Albert Lea has won every year except for 2011, 2016 and 2018.

The collected food will be weighed at the post office and immediately released to the Albert Lea food shelves for distribution.

Residents are asked to leave non-perishable food items by their mailboxes on Saturday.