Employees with the Dowagiac post office will deliver more than just letters and packages Saturday, as the local branch will participate in the National Association of Letter Carriers’ 25th annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive.

Residents are asked to leave any nonperishable items, such as canned goods, rice, peanut butter, cereal and other boxed food items, in a sturdy bag next to their mailboxes that morning. Postal workers and volunteers will pick up the food during the office’s usual mail routes that morning and donate them to several Dowagiac food pantries, including ACTION Ministries, First Christian Church and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

People may also bring nonperishables directly to the post office, located at 202 Commercial St. downtown, on or before Saturday. The office is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays.

This year will be the 17th that carriers with the Dowagiac branch have pitched in with the effort. Every year, 18 to 20 retired postal workers and other volunteers join the effort — led by former employee Mary Means — helping postal workers pick up food left by mailboxes and deliver them to the local pantries.

This will mark the second drive that Dowagiac Post Master Janet Hagen has participated in at the local branch. Hagen, who joined the Dowagiac team around this time last year, said her office runs the smoothest food drive of all the branches she has worked at.

“It was really impressive,” Hagen said about last year’s drive. “I’ve never seen a community as invested in the food drive as Dowagiac.”

Last year, locals donated more than 6,300 pounds of food to the drive.

The Dowagiac office is just one of many USPS post offices participating in Stamp Out Hunger. The Niles and Buchanan post offices are also joining in, with Niles employees donating food to the Niles Salvation Army, First Presbyterian Church and St. Mary’s Christian Service Center, and Buchanan giving to Red Bud Area Ministries.

Americans have donated more than 1.5 billion pounds of food since Stamp Out Hunger began in 1993. Last year, the postal service collected 80.1 million pounds, marking the 13th consecutive year employees gathered 70 million pounds or more.

“The carriers have a personal investment in the wellbeing of the people on their routes,” Hagen said. “They really care. Giving back like this is one of the advantages of serving a small town like Dowagiac.”