Helping others is as simple as leaving non-perishable food items at the mailbox, and Saturday letter carriers from across the country will be collecting food for the National Association of Letter Carriers “Stamp Out Hunger” annual food drive.

This will mark the 23rd year that carriers have been collecting food for the hungry, and the first year the local carriers have partnered with the Kimmy Melton Foundation.

Kimmy was a student at Warren Central High School before her death in 2012, and for the past three years a canned food drive has been held in her honor, said Amy Melton, Kimmy’s mother.

Kimmy was an active teenager in the community, her mother said. She had been a member of the WCHS Total Sound show choir, a can-can dancer for the “Gold in the Hills” melodrama, a member of the 456 Siege Robotics team, and she had attended the Bowmar Baptist Church.

“After Kimmy passed away we wanted to honor her memory with a food drive since that was how she celebrated her birthdays,” Melton said.

Kimmy was passionate about helping others and decided that she wanted her friends to bring canned goods to her birthday parties in lieu of gifts, Melton said.

Therefore after Kimmy’s death the family decided to carry on the tradition by sponsoring a food drive in honor of their daughter.

Last year, Melton said more than 6,000 pounds of can goods were collected from schools and churches for the Kimmy Melton Foundation.

Since the Melton food drive has been held during the same time of year as the mail carriers food drive the two groups decided to join forces in a collected effort to feed the hungry.

“The goal is to collect more than a 100,000 pounds of food,” Melton said.

Six local agencies will benefit from the food drive, Tommy Atlas said.

Atlas is the local organizer for the “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive.

Agencies include the Salvation Army, Haven House, the Store House Food Pantry, the Vicksburg Children’s Shelter, River City Rescue Mission and the We Care Community Services.

Volunteers from all of the agencies will also be on hand to assist the mail carriers once the food is brought back to the post office, Atlas said.

Atlas said picking up the food at the mailboxes only adds about 15 to 30 minutes to a mail carrier’s route.

“It usually doesn’t take much more time to do unless we have more duties,” Atlas said.

In the past, carriers have not exceeded space in the mail trucks for the added cargo, he said, but if a carrier needed help it would be available.

“We have the capability to send someone out to help,” Atlas said.

Atlas said to participate in the food drive, just leave a non-perishable food donation in a bag by your mailbox on Saturday and the letter carrier will do the rest.

Last year, 72 million pounds of food was collected nationally, feeding an estimated 30 million people, he said.