WELLINGTON COUNTY – The Community Resource Centre of North and Centre Wellington is looking for pen pals to bring back the lost art of letter writing and to create connections in the county.
The program, called Sending Support, will create strong connections within the community which is something the resource centre is looking to do during the pandemic.
“We wanted to address that loneliness issue presented by the pandemic in a way that would be different than the technology we heavily rely on,” said Sarah Keating, child care teacher and Sending Support coordinator.
“We wanted to do something a little bit different that had more of a physical component to it.”
Keating said the program is for the community as a whole but aimed at children, caregivers and seniors. Sending Support has been fully funded by the Centre Wellington Community Foundation (CWCF) so all supplies such as stationery and postage is free for participants.
All that is asked is an agreement to send a minimum of one letter a month. Keating said this is a throwback to a time before messages could be relayed in an instant.
“It’s also fun, something to look forward to, something coming in the mail,” Keating said. “It’s just a little bit different than the instant messaging and email we have today.”
Another project being run in conjunction with Sending Support is the Community Anthology which is a traveling journal for county residents to document their pandemic experience.
“We all went through it and how did these experiences shape us, look the same or look different?” Keating said. “So it’s kind of a traveling journal, it also has a polaroid camera so you can put a picture in.”
For this, the Community Resource Centre has partnered with Historica Canada, who are known for the Heritage Minutes commercials, to archive the journal as part of a larger project about the shared experiences of Canadians during the pandemic.
Keating said she thinks people will learn a lot about the varied experiences of people from different parts of the county.
“Because our county is so large, you might have pen pals that live down the street from each other or might have pen pals that live 45 minutes away,” Keating said. “We have people from the city and people from the county. How did that look different and how did it look the same?”
Participants can sign-up for one program or the other but Keating said she hopes people will do both. The program is anticipated to begin in September.
Those interested can sign-up here or if a larger group wants to be involved, such as a school class or a senior’s centre, they can email Keating directly.
