Holiday mail?
Local mail volume up, local postmaster says
By LAURA THORNBURG
Staff
As Christmas quickly approaches, so does the final opportunities to
send gifts and Christmas cards that can be received before the
holiday arrives.
According to Kim Reeves, who serves the postmaster at the Glade
Valley Post Office, the office has seen about a 20 percent increase
in volume thus far this holiday season as compared to last year.
"Package volume is about double," Reeves added. "I'd say it's due to
people ordering items off the Internet."
On Tuesday, she said there were 11 feet of letters (the equivalent of
2,500 letters—not counting about 700 magazines) that needed to be
sorted.
"In a small office like mine, I have to sort mail (for) the carrier
and pull out the post office section," Reeves pointed out.
When addressing deadlines, Reeves stated she would be skeptical about
sending items overseas at this time, leery as to whether or not they
would reach their anticipated destination before Christmas.
However, for those who like to procrastinate, Reeves suggests
Priority Mail and offers, "You can mail up to Dec. 21 and feel safe
about it getting there. It's a better service for what little price
difference there is..."
Meanwhile, Terri Poe, who serves as the Officer in Charge/Postmaster
for the Sparta Post Office, commented that at this time, they are
expecting between 52,000 and 55,000 pieces of mail to come through
the office in the near future, noting they received about 46,400
pieces of mail last week alone.
Poe also mentioned that the increase in mail volume results in things
running behind and mail being delivered 10 to 15 minutes late.
"During the month of December, our mail volume shoots up so high
because of Christmas cards and different things and the first of the
month is always a higher volume than any other time of the year,"
stated Poe.
Addressing mailed items, Poe agrees with Reeves that spending an
additional 50 to 65 cents to send items via Priority Mail is a good
idea, noting that using that option, shipments typically would take
no more than four days to arrive to their destination. "For
Matt Shaw sorts mail at the Glade Valley Post Office, which has seen
a 20 percent increase in holiday mail this year.
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