Local mail carriers will make it easy to help feed the hungry Saturday during the 19th annual Stamp Out Hunger food-collection drive.

Residents of Champaign-Urbana and surrounding communities can leave a sturdy bag of nonperishable foods next to their mailbox, and letter carriers will pick up the food as they deliver the mail and take it to the Eastern Illinois Foodbank in Urbana.

It's part of the nation's largest single-day food drive, held the second Saturday in May each year. In 2010, nearly 1,500 U.S. Post Office branches across the country collected a record-setting 77.1 million pounds of food.

Food can also be dropped off in collection bins at the Urbana County Market, 1819 Philo Road, U, and at the Urbana Post Office, 300 E. Tatman Court, U, off Myra Station/High Cross Road.

Examples of nonperishable foods include canned soup, canned vegetables, pasta, rice, cereal, bottled juice and other items that do not require refrigeration. Organizers ask that you do not send items that are expired or in glass containers.

Supporting the drive are Campbell's Soup Co., the U.S. Postal Service, National Association of Letter Carriers, Feeding America, Valpak, the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, the AFL-CIO, United Way and Uncle Bob's Self Storage.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of Americans living in "food insecure" homes topped 50 million in 2009 — one in three of them a child. In the 14-county region served by the Eastern Illinois Foodbank, 79,000 people struggle with food insecurity, unable to get enough food on a regular basis.