“This community is so giving, so generous,” said David Snyder as he prepared to help send a few of the 50-some postal totes of food donated Saturday during the Postal Service’s annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive into the storage area for Warren’s First Church of the Nazarene Food Pantry.

“This is far more than we’ll ever get on our shelves,” added Jim Swanson, who has helped run the pantry for many years. “It’s a good problem to have.”

Donations for this year’s Stamp Out Hunger were greatly increased compared with last year, said Snyder, who recalled last year’s total donations to the pantry being able to fill the bed of a pickup truck.

This year, they needed a small trailer to haul everything across town before unloading, sorting, and checking the dates on every item, then shelving what they could and storing the rest.

Each year on the second Saturday in May, Postal Service letter carriers across the nation take donated items left next to mailboxes along their routes and “deliver them to local community food banks, pantries, and shelters,” according to the USPS website. Since 1992 Stamp Out Hunger has donated over a billion pounds of food to local programs such as the pantry at the First Church of the Nazarene.

Along with this year’s Stamp Out Hunger donation, which Swanson said will be added to the store purchased by the pantry weekly through Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwestern Pennsylvania., the pantry at First Nazarene is supplemented by Walmart’s Feeding America Program, as well as donations kicked in by church members.

“I’ve been down and out,” said Swanson, “and God always found me a way back.”

He added that being able to send the pantry’s current 25 to 30 families per week home with two boxes full of food including canned goods, meat, produce, and bakery items each Wednesday feels great, because he knows where they’ve been and what the help meant to him in the past.

Jaci Harkins, program director at the Salvation Army’s Warren Citadel, said that this year’s Stamp Out Hunger donations in Warren totaled 4,109 pounds of food, including canned goods, pasta, and other non-perishable foods, which was split three ways between the pantry at First Nazarene, the Salvation Army, and the Sheffield Area Ecumenical Food Pantry.

“This community is wonderful,” said Harkins. “We’re very grateful to be able to put all this to good use. There’s definitely a need for it in the community.

According to a statement by the church, “Continued monetary donations can be made this Wednesday, May 18, at warrengives.org under First Church of the Nazarene. All donations will go toward the food pantry.”