Springlake-Earth decided to build a post office, bank, and a store in our school. The third grade is in charge of running the post office. Since we did not know very much about running a post office we went on field trips to the Monterey Station Post Office in Lubbock, Texas and the Earth Post Office in Earth, Texas. At Lubbock they use several machines to sort the mail since it's a large post office handling about 500,000 pieces of mail each day. Earth is a rural post office and since it is much smaller everything is done manually except for the stamping machine. Earth Post Office handles between 3000 and 5000 pieces of mail each day.

WOW! That's a lot of mail!

Mrs. Bode, an aid in elementary, designed the room number plates and attached mailboxes to each room. Each student and teacher was assigned a mailing address. Mr. Cole, a volunteer helper, built mail slots in our post office.

My name is Heath and I begin each afternoon in the post office by sorting the mail by grade level. The next thing I do is check each letter to make sure the address is written correctly and that it has been stamped. The stamp we have is a wolverine head. It represents our school mascot. It is an honor to have a stamp that represents our school mascot. Next I put a stamp that says WEE DELIVER on the letter to let the receiver know that it has been correctly addresed and has been sent. If the address is incorrect I stamp the letter with RETURN TO SENDER.

After that, I put the letters into the correct mail slots. Then, I put rubber bands around each room's mail. I begin with largest room number and go to the smallest room number because of the location of the rooms. Last of all, I begin delivering the mail to its proper room. Now that I have learned how to run the postoffice I will train other students to work with me!

No matter what the weather I always get the mail delivered on time and at the correct address! Check out this site for some cute stories about Postal Workers and READ ALL ABOUT THEM!