Looking for ways to get into the letter-writing spirit all year round? We’ve put together a list of resources and organizations you can visit to find pen pals or card writing campaigns. Know of a good group that’s not included here? Let us know!
https://www.brighten-a-day.org/
Letters to isolated retirement home residents, hospitalized patients, and frontline workers.
https://www.globalpenfriends.com/index.php?page=faq
Based in Australia, and running for 25 years, this is a general connection service in which children are connected to children, adults to adults, with restrictions on type of content (i.e. not for dating, etc.)
https://www.penpalworld.com/faq.asp
Note - this is a PAID connection model.
Open to all gender expressions, offering digital and post communication, a free platform that also has a Patreon option for additional features.
This focuses on sending postcards - there is an ID system you can use if you want to keep a connection going, otherwise it’s just random.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/267019763720515/?fref=nf
This is a moderated Facebook group with 43,000 members.
https://www.lettersofloveglobal.com/
Started by a woman who lost her mother to cancer when she was 10 years old, there are a variety of letter-writing efforts to spread cheer one card at a time. Moms write to other moms, kids write to other kids. They have a current campaign focusing on Ukrainian families.
An international nonprofit that sends handwritten letter to women and girls around the world in times of hardship. The community of 7,000+ letter writers send snail mail each week to uplift and encourage others.
https://amillionthanks.org/letter/
Send letters to military (active or veteran)
https://www.janinestange.com/join/
A friend told me her father (a veteran) received a flood of cards for his 90th birthday through this organization - his photo is on their website. Very worthy option to share!
https://soldiersangels.org/volunteer/virtual-volunteer/
This has several ways to support soldiers deployed overseas - we may want to focus just on the card-writing segment of the website…
https://www.operationgratitude.com/volunteer/anywhere/letters/
Letters to soldiers. Note - there is a place on the site for teachers to sign up and receive lesson plans to support letter-writing.
The emphasis is on hand-made cards, but it’s really about the messages of encouragement. They have sensible guidelines about content to include & not include, also.
https://www.cardsforhospitalizedkids.com/make-cards.html
This is based in the UK but welcomes cards from any country.
(FYI - this site does not allow purchased cards - all must be made by the writer.)
https://www.girlslovemail.com/
Letters to women newly diagnosed with breast cancer.
Sending cards to residents of a new nursing home each month.
https://www.lettersagainst.org/volunteer
Anyone can request to receive letters, and there’s some nice bits on supporting mental health.
Postcards of encouragement to refugees around the world, coordinated in Washington, DC.
Cheering up older folks who are more isolated.
https://www.lettersagainstisolation.com/frequentlyaskedquestions
Focusing mostly on seniors, there are links with tips for what to write to a stranger.
This is a paid site, but has some thoughts on the benefits of using pen pals in classrooms.
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(Thinking of You Week and the Greeting Card Association are not affiliated with any of these groups and inclusion in this list is not an endorsement.)