Postal employees collect 413,000 pounds of food, personal care items

After a week's extension, organizers of the first statewide Harvest for the Hungry drive announced recently that 413,000 pounds of food and personal care items have been collected.

Postal employees collected donations from homes and post office collection sites from March 11 to 25, hoping to gather a pound for every Marylander living in poverty -- about 440,000 pounds.

The drive fell short of that number, but did receive nearly 13,000 pounds of items such as soap, shampoo and deodorant from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield and its employees, in addition to the food donations.