The U.S. Postal Service is expecting to ship a record number of packages during the holiday season. The shipments are on pace to increase 12% over last year, handling approximately 750 million packages.Â
"Our customers want us to get the mail home and the Postal Service takes great pride in making sure that we play a vital part in the Christmas season in doing that," Jason McMahill, Post Office Operations Senior Manager for the Nevada-Sierra District said.
Nevada post offices are expected to handle nine million parcels, this holiday season. Reno's share is about one million packages, with a total of 1.5 million pieces of mail.Â
Karren Little is the Supervisor of Customer Service Support at the Vassar St. Post Office. She says the Reno plant is keeping up with the national pace.
"We want to serve our customers every day, 360 days a year or so," Little said. "So, we do our best during the holidays and we definitely staff up extra to provide that extra for the Christmas season."
The packages are sorted on a conveyor belt system that operates 20 hours per day.
"The clerks scan it in, so the customers know it's arrived here, and then it takes it down a conveyor belt and sorts it," Little said.
The machine is shut down for four hours, each day, for maintenance -171 employees work at the plant, including 37 additional workers who were brought in for the holiday rush.
"We're 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right now," McMahill said.
The Postal Service also has machines that sort letters and cards, handling about 38,000 pieces per hour. That is good news for Reno resident Amanda Werbeckes. She mailed Christmas presents and cards to Wisconsin, Friday, with nine days until Christmas.
"I was afraid," Werbeckes said. "We have a week left. So, I figured it was like, I'm off today, so I was just going to come and do it and it's been fantastic."
Extra personnel are set up in the front of the post office to help customers.Â
Cheryl Caviglia made sure to get her items in the mail before the weekend.
"I pretty much wanted to, yes, because it has to go to Florida," Caviglia said. "So, they tell me it's gonna be a couple of days. So that's very good."
Friday was the deadline to send packages to military members, overseas. The next three deadlines are next week: Dec. 20: First-Class Mail Cards and Letters. Dec. 21: Priority Mail. Dec. 23: Priority Mail Express.
The Postal Service also has options for people who do not want to go the the post office, allowing them to ship their packages from home.
"Click it and ship it from online, and then you can save yourself a trip coming in," Little said. "If you do come in, we have all kinds of staff members here that are just filled with general wonderful knowledge that can give you options if you've missed one of the deadlines."
Reno's main post office will be open Sunday from 9am to 3pm.
