COEUR d'ALENE - Carolyn Shewfelt is blunt when explaining just how important the National Association of Letter Carriers food drive is Saturday.

"It's huge, because this is our biggest food drive of the year," said Shewfelt, manager of the Community Action Partnership Food Bank.

Numbers tell the story:

* The food bank gave out 23,200 pounds more food than it took in last month.

* It is giving out close to 112,000 pounds a month this year, up 30,000 pounds from 2010.

* It is serving an average of 9,328 people per month, up about 850 from last year.

"We're so busy sometimes, it's just unreal," Shewfelt said. "It's crazy how our distribution has just gone up."

Most of the people are from the Coeur d'Alene area. They share a few things in common: They lost their job; had their hours at work cut back; are spending more of their income on gas; or they lost their home and are struggling to find a place to live.

"A lot of it is, people just can't afford food," Shewfelt said Thursday.

The community can help.

The 19th annual NALC Stamp Out Hunger food drive is held the second Saturday in May.

"Demands for food assistance have reached record levels from what seems to be an almost endless line of victims of the worst recession since the Great Depression," according to an NALC press release.

National and local NALC food drive coordinators hope to top last year's record of 77 million pounds of donations collected along postal routes.

To donate, residents are asked to leave nonperishable food in a bag near their mailbox Saturday morning. The postal carrier will pick it up.

The food bank is struggling to meet demand and maintain services.

Last month, 90 volunteers clocked around 1,300 hours, and still, more are needed

"We had to double our volunteers," said Shewfelt, who is one of only three paid staffers at the food bank at the Industrial Park off Atlas Road.

To give an even clearer picture of just how busy it is at the food bank, consider that in 2008, it gave out 843 Thanksgiving baskets. In 2009, it was 1,743. In 2010, the number climbed to 2,600.

Forget that the aging food bank building at the Industrial Park could use a remodel. Right now, it's about getting food to the hungry.

Shewfelt said there isn't much separating many people from donating food to being forced to ask for it.

All it takes is the loss of income or an unexpected expense, something that seems to be commonplace in North Idaho.

"Basically, people are going from owning a home straight to homelessness," she said.

And those are the folks reluctant to accept help. Some are in tears as they stand in line waiting to get what they can, Shewfelt said.

"People who used to giving are receiving," she said. "That's the hardest part. They don't want to have to take it."