Letter carriers all over the country were doing some heavy lifting Saturday afternoon, putting in to their trucks much more than they were taking out.

More than 34 tons of that heavy lifting was done to ensure that no child in the SCV goes to bed hungry.

Don’t miss a thing. Get breaking news delivered right to your inbox

Belinda Crawford, Executive Director of the SCV Food Pantry, said that this year’s collection bested last year’s by at least 450 pounds.

“This will help us during the summer when the children are out of school and eating all their meals at home,” she said.

The tonnage of food sounds pretty overwhelming, but Crawford warned that it should be kept in perspective, since the Pantry distributes more than a ton of food to clients every day.

More than 100 volunteers greeted the letter carriers returning from their routes at the main Post Office on Creekside and the auxiliary location at The Old Road near Calgrove, cheerfully clearing the trucks of their bounty of canned, boxed and other nonperishable foods. Crews came from various volunteer groups, including the West Ranch baseball team, Wells Fargo Bank and the Golden Valley Linemen, to name just a few.

At the main receiving center in Newhall, the Hart High football team was hard at work filling the storage spaces and sending the empty trucks back to pick up more donations. Volunteer drivers came from the workers and board members of the Food Pantry, with a support crew from Hallway Plumbing.