Letter carriers delivered more than just the regular mail this week - they participated in the 17th Annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive, which organizers dub the largest one-day food drive in the nation.

The Laurinburg Post Office collected a ton of food for the drive, literally.

Letter Carrier Charles McLaurin, coordinator of the Laurinburg effort, said this was the best year yet.

"It went great," McLaurin said. "Our goal this year was to reach over 2,000 pounds... This year, we collected 2,400 pounds [of food]"

"We were elated with the food we saw," McLaurin recalled. He said he knew on Saturday that they had surpassed the goal.

But the bigger surprise was when he came in Monday morning and saw that people had brought even more food in.

"It was such a joy to see the people of Scotland County give the way they did in these tough economic times," McLaurin said.

He also said that collections are needed now the most, as the school year is about to end and needy school-aged children won't be getting subsidized meals during the summer break.

"It is devastating to the children in this community when they open the cabinet and there is nothing to eat," McLaurin said.

He also released the name of the top two collectors: Cindy Rushing and Brian Gainey. Each collected over 500 pounds of nonperishable food from their route on Saturday.

"They did an excellent job of prepping their customers for this," McLaurin said.

He also professed pride in the U.S. postal service and his coworkers for devoting their free time to collecting food.

"Everyone pitches in from the top to the bottom," McLaurin said. "I'd like to thank my fellow employees for going that extra mile."

Next year, he hopes the post office will continue to collect more food.

Leslie Ann Womack, director of Church Community Services, expressed her thanks to the postal workers for the sizable donation.

"It's wonderful," she said. "Its the most they've ever collected. The problem is, it won't last long."

Womack said keeping food in stock is a perennial problem for the nonprofit, a trend seen by many of the nations food banks.

"Its just kind of a universal thing," Womack said.

According to Womack, Church Community Services could only distribute food for 44 of the first 85 business days of the year.

A big portion of that - 17 days - were Friday soup days sponsored by Campbell Soup. Womack said the company gives a palate of soup to the nonprofit each month.

So how long will 2,400 pounds of food will last the community?

"We're hoping it will last a little over a week," Womack said.

"It's always great to get food, and we always need it," she added.

Thousands of letter carriers across the country collected food for delivery to local food banks and pantries for distribution to those who need the help.

It's the 17th year the drive has been operated by the National Association of Letter Carriers and the Postal Service.

Over 125 million postcards, sponsored by the Campbell Soup Company and the U.S. Postal Service’s Priority Mail, were mailed to postal customers to remind them of the drive.

The carriers collected nonperishable food from beside mailboxes on their regular delivery routes.

An official total has not been released for this year's drive, but last year letter carriers collected over 73 millions pounds of food for the needy.