Two Village Post Offices open in Benton County

BENTON COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) - Fellure Foods in Otterbein and Oxford is a place to get your daily groceries. Now customers can add stamps and flat-rate boxes to the list.

Wednesday a Village Post Office opened in both stores.

"Customers can come drop off packages, pick up stamps, pick up flat-rate supplies and they also have a blue collection box for letters," Village Post Office Coordinator Judy Bays said.

Bays said the Village Post Office, or VPO allows businesses to supply customers with basic mail needs. They're in response to offices cutting hours. In Benton County three of the five post offices have cut hours.

Owner of Fellure Foods Drew Fellure said it only made sense.

"Currently we sell stamps, and we sell quite a few," Fellure said. "This is an added service on top of that."

Bays said hundreds of VPOs have been popping up around the country. They're mostly in rural areas.

She said since the rural post offices don't get as much traffic as the city offices their hours are cut first.

"Greater Indiana itself has more than 300 offices that will be reducing hours," Bays said. "This is an extension of our post offices. We want to stay out there for the people."

Bays said another goal of the VPOs is to help local businesses.

The Otterbein and Oxford VPOs are number 30 and 31 in the state. There are more than 300 nationwide.