COOS BAY — Post carrier David Lopez started walking a block along Fourth Street downtown Coos Bay with a fistful of mail, and ended it with an armload of food.

The burden was hard on the shoulders, but good for the community well being.

“It’s all right,” Lopez said, shrugging a few times and smiling. “I’m having a good time.”

He was busy Saturday collecting food for the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive.

Stamp Out Hunger, a partnership between the Campbell Soup Company and U.S. Postal Service letter carriers across the nation, is in its 14th year. It is the largest single-day food drive in the nation. According to the Web site http://www.helpstampouthunger.com, more than 70 million pounds of food were collected in 2007. Last year, 11,000 pounds were donated locally. The last count on Saturday revealed the food donations were nearly double that of last year, with 21,500 pounds collected, organizer Perry Boatright said.

Picking up the bags of food makes the day a little longer, but Lopez, who has worked the drive every year, said he doesn’t mind. It’s for a good cause. On some blocks, he has to park his truck in the middle of the block and make several trips back with the bright yellow bags loaded with food. But sun, rain,  hail — or food drive — the mail still is delivered and donations are taken back to the main Fifth Street and Golden Avenue post office.

“We just make it happen,” Lopez said.

And it’s at just the right time. Some local food banks need more food to fill their empty shelves.

“It’s good to help the community, especially now when the economy it terrible,” said Dan Feddersen, the supervisor in charge at the office Saturday.

Rising gas and food prices made providing necessities more difficult in recent months, Terri Creager said. She is the manager of the Charleston Food Cupboard.

“I think that is why we are getting hit so hard,” she said.

Food bank volunteers worked well past the last delivery Saturday evening, sorting and processing the donations. This food drive is essential to keep the cupboard shelves stocked, she said.

“This is what gets us through the next few months.”

The main post office was fairly quiet in the early afternoon, but that would change later in the day. Trucks from local food banks were to line up to pick up the donations, which have been increasing, according to Feddersen, who has worked for the postal service for 13 years.

“Usually they come later in the afternoon and hang around until all my carriers come back,” he said.

Carriers and volunteers worked out a system to make the day go as efficiently as possible. Postal Service supervisors and drive volunteers made trips throughout the day to meet carriers with full trucks or to go out collecting the food bags from door steps. Once back at the office, the food was unloaded into large bins. By 1 p.m. there were four bins full.

Kristie Horn, the leader of the Masonic youth group Job’s Daughters, said her group of four girls and another leader were making their first drop off at about 2 p.m. after spending two hours helping with the event. Once all out of the group’s two vans, the haul filled one and a half bins.

This is the first year the group has volunteered, and Horn said it would most likely do it again.

“Some of the letter carriers were glad to see us,” Horn said. “Those neighborhoods were pretty full.”

Horn said on some blocks every house had a donation on the front porch.

Preparation for the drive started last week and the collection most likely won’t officially end until the latter part of this week. The collection bags were delivered on Thursday to give people time to put food together.

“We will get food throughout the entire week, not just today,” Feddersen said.

People drop off food on their own, too, if they forget to put the bags out.

Boatright recalled the first year of the drive in 1994, when the office collected much less than it does today.

“I remember that first year. We were kind of slow,” he said, adding after a few years more people were aware of the food drive and how it easy it is to help. “They started thinking ‘We don’t have to leave our yard.’”

Only 500 pounds were donated the first year.

 Creager was impressed with — and grateful for — the amount of food donated, especially as more people turn to food banks for assistance. Post office employees, too, felt the effort and time was well spent.

“Everybody needs help now,” Feddersen said. “It couldn’t have come at a better time.”