A Letter-Perfect Food Drive

 Glendora’s Chris Roberts, longtime radio voice for UCLA football and basketball, is lending his support to the Stamp Out Hunger food drive for the second straight year.
    Roberts was recruited by Sowing Seeds for Life, a local food bank and one of the beneficiaries of the drive. The founder and CEO of Sowing Seeds for Life is Glendora resident Vicki Brown. Roberts comes from a long line of postal workers. His father, uncle and grandfather were all post office employees at one time or other.
       Sowings Seeds for Life will have a truck at the La Verne post office Saturday, and it will be loaded with food collected by letter carriers in La Verne and Claremont. The food will be distributed at the twice-a-month Sowing Seeds food pantries held in the parking lot of DPI Labs at 1350 Arrow Highway in La Verne. DPI Labs is an aerospace manufacturing company.
    People for People will also be picking up food at the La Verne post office for distribution to several local charities.
    Anita Guzik, the drive’s food coordinator for Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley, said La Verne is the only site in her area where two charities will be getting food for distribution.
   Stamp Out Hunger is a national food drive put on by the National Association of Letter Carriers union and involving some 1,400 post offices. It is the largest food drive of its kind in the country. This will be the 21st year of the drive which has collected more than 1.2 billion pounds of food. Last year, more than 70 million pounds were collected.
      “We’re expecting an even larger amount this year because for the first time plastic and paper bags are being put in mail boxes,” Guzik said. “The bags not only make it more convenient for people to donate, they also draw more attention to the drive than just a postcard.”
      According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual study measuring food security in the United States, the number of Americans living in food insecure homes is more than 50 million, with approximately one in every three food-insecure Americans being a child.
      “This is a great cause and something close to my heart,” said Roberts. “I’m glad to help out in any way I can. I just wish my father was still around to get involved as well. He would
have loved this.”
      Roberts’ real name is Bob LaPeer. His father, Willis LaPeer, and his uncle, Wellington LaPeer, worked for many years at the post office in El Monte. His grandfather, William LaPeer, was a postal worker in Detroit.
      Roberts said his father and uncle both went by Bill. And so did his grandfather.
    “They were all Bill LaPeer,” Roberts said.
       Roberts changed his to Chris Roberts while working at KFXM in San Bernardino in 1970. The program director requested a name change because the station already had a Bob on the air.
    He chose Roberts as his last name because the name on his driver’s license is Robert LaPeer and he chose Chris because of his admiration for legendary broadcaster Chris Schenkel. When Roberts moved on from KFXM, he kept his new professional name. His legal name is still Robert LaPeer. Fortunately, his bank accepts his checks in either name.
     From 1982 through ’91, Roberts did play-by-play for Long Beach State football and basketball and some baseball. That stint included the 1990 season when the legendary George Allen was brought in as coach. Allen died after that season after football was discontinued after one more years.
     Counting one year with Cal State Fullerton, since 1981 no one has broadcast more Division I college games in Southern California. Presumably, it is not even close.
      Roberts reached such a lofty position in sports broadcasting the old fashioned way – he earned it.
      When he was still Bob LaPeer, he played football, basketball and baseball at Baldwin Park High and baseball at Cal Poly Pomona. His love of sports drove him toward broadcasting. Early in his career he worked for such stations as KCIN in Victorville, KREO in Indio, and KWOW in Pomona prior to hooking up with KFXM and changing his name.
     Later came stints at L.A. stations KUTE-FM, KFI and sister station KOST, and KMPC prior to becoming the radio voice for UCLA football and basketball in 1992.
       Heading up the food drive in La Verne and Claremont is Tony Mazuca, the head steward to the local chapter of the letter carriers union. Among those assisting him is his wife Linda. Both are La Verne letter carriers.
     “Our letter carriers devote a lot of their own time to this food drive,” Mazuca said. “And picking up all the donations is a lot of extra work. They do this to help those in need.”
    What they get in return is a barbecue put on by Tony and Linda Mazuca on Saturday afternoon behind the La Verne post office. That is also where they load the donations onto trucks for delivery to Sowing Seeds for Life and People for People.
      Sponsors nationally include the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, the Campbell Soup Company, Valpak envelopes, U.S. Postal Service, United Way, AFL-CIO, Feeding America, Uncle Bob’s Self-Storage and AARP.