Saturday marks the 23rd anniversary of the nationwide Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers in partnership with the United States Postal Service and the United Way.

About 49 million people suffer from hunger daily in the United States, including 16 million children. The Stamp out Hunger Food Drive gives people a chance to leave non-perishable food items, such as cereal, rice, peanut butter, pasta sauce or canned fruits and vegetables in a bag in their mailboxes or wherever they receive mail before their mail is delivered and the postal worker will pick them up.

“In Ironton and the rural Ironton areas, the food will be split between BackPack Buddies and the city mission,” Jodie Hunt, BackPack Buddies organizer, said. “This is the second year that we’re doing this.”

BackPack Buddies is an organization based out of Campbell Chapel Freewill Baptist Church that provides food for children with limited access to it.

The timing of the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive in the spring is significant, in that many food banks and pantries get the majority of their donations during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons by spring their supplies are depleted.

The Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive began in 1993, and has since collected more than 1 billion pounds of food.