PHOTOS: Food Pantry Makes Huge Gain at 'Stamp Out Hunger'

It’s estimated that 5.7 million Americans utilize food banks like Sussex Outreach Services to supplement their pantries at home, and with such a great need, Sussex residents jumped into action.

More than 7,000 food items were collected in the village during the annual . The National Letter Carriers Association organizes the collection, and local Sussex postal carriers put a plastic bag in every mailbox in hopes of snagging donations.

Volunteers from  and other area groups were  sorting through all the donations on Saturday.

“We received over 7,000 items of food in the drive,” said . “I’m really happy with the results and our shelves are groaning.  We had some amazing help from the Hamilton High School Robotics team and Grace Lutheran Church, in addition to some of our regular volunteers.  We could not have organized it all without the help of those great volunteers!”

Sussex is one of the more than 10,000 communities nationally who participated in collecting food for local pantries. Since its inception in 1993, the Stamp Out Hunger food drive has collected more than one billion pounds of food.