Have you been thinking about donating to your local food bank? Well, your mail carrier is about to make it a lot easier. On May 8th, you can take part in Stamp Out Hunger, the nation’s largest single day food drive. Letter carriers in more than 10,000 communities will collect food items and deliver them to local food banks to help some of the millions of Americans, including an estimated 16.7 million children who face hunger every day.

Here’s how you can help:

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[Fire roasted tomato and bleu cheese soup with a bacon apple and caramelized onion grilled cheese panini]

Candi Wilvang participated in the United Way Hunger Challenge with her family of three – Mom, Dad and ten year old son (with some help from her 20 year old son). Read about their experience below.

The challenge was an awesome experience for our family to take. I am the mother of two son’s ages 20 and 10. My oldest son Shattuck lives…

One of the main issues facing local food banks and the clients who rely on them is a lack of fresh produce. Commonly donated items tend to be canned and dry goods, which are great, but don’t make for a very well rounded diet.

Fortunately, there are numerous ways to help stock food banks with healthy, fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables. Programs such as Solid Ground’s Lettuce Link aim to improve access to fresh produce to low-income individuals in Seattle.…

The Climb for the Community team spent all of yesterday on the lower slopes of Mount Rainier training in “mountaineering day school.” This morning climbers started their two-day trek to the summit.

Here’s a report from Molly Nordstrom, United Way of King County’s board chair and the only woman on the Climb:

Today we are hiking to Camp Muir. We will climb from 5,400 feet to 10,060 feet. The trek is nearly 4.5 miles and will take about 6 hours. It’s expected to be

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We asked people to give us 5, and they did…and more! Yesterday, we raised exactly $4,500 in online donations for the Climb for the Community. It’s amazing that we did that in just one day! The money will go to United Way’s Response for Basic Needs, which will provide housing, food and support for people being hard hit by the economic downturn. Funds from the Response are already making more food available for food banks and meal programs. The overall plan is to…

It’s great to have so many people in King County following Hunger Action Week as well as people outside the Seattle-area and Washington state. If you live somewhere else in the United Sates and want to get involved in taking action against hunger, feedingamerica.org is a great resource. King County residents can help by giving to United Way’s Response for Basic Needs and by volunteering.

If you received your daily Hunger Action Week email this morning, you probably know that visits to area food banks have increased significantly in recent months, with some providers reporting 25-30 percent increases. This is hardly surprising given our current economic climate. More people are out of work, dual-income households are becoming single-income households, and people who were once regular donors to food banks are now finding themselves on the receiving end of these vital services. Linda Nageotte, CEO for Food Lifeline, a…