I had the pleasure of participating once again this year in a fun inter-generational pen pal program through the Webster Recreation Center.
The program, organized by Recreation Supervisors Julie Schillaci and Daphne Geoca, connected 20 Webster seniors with a classroom of second graders at Autumn Lane Elementary School in Greece. I took park in the program for the first time last year, and enjoyed it so much that when word came in September that it was starting up again, I immediately signed on. It’s a great opportunity to help young people improve their writing skills and find out that writing can actually be FUN.
Shortly after the school year began, each participating senior was matched with a student, and we received our first hand-written letters in late September.
Over the next seven months, we received, and responded to, three more letters. I don’t know about the ones the others were getting, but mine were covered in bright colors and rainbows, flowers and stickers. Alisha would draw pictures of my foster cats, and even drew a rather accurate representation of Prague when she knew I was visiting there.
Alisha and I wrote about her travels to visit her family, how she likes to play soccer, the ladybug project she was working on, and the concert she had coming up. She asked me what my favorite color was, my favorite flower, and if I took a bus to school. But the last letter was my favorite, because it included an invitation to an end-of-program reception when we would finally be able to meet each other in person.
And so it was on Friday May 16, the other seniors and I traveled to Autumn Lane Elementary and finally got to meet our pen pals. We gathered in the school’s gymnasium, the kids sang us some songs, and several of the students went up to the microphone to tell us all how much they enjoyed getting our letters. Several of us seniors also took to the mic, saying pretty much the same thing: we LOVED getting the letters.
After all the festivities, the kids served us some drinks and snacks, and we had some time to sit and chat. I showed her some photos from Prague, and she told me how she was graduating to another school next year. The conversation flowed easily, like we were good friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while. And we had to break it off much too soon (after all, the kids had to get to P.E. class).
I felt fortunate to be part of the program again this year. I’m already looking forward to doing so again next year, and helping inspire another young writer.
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(posted 5/25/2025)
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That is a fantastic project. I would love to sign up as a penpal.
It’s so fun! They’ll be recruiting pen pals again in August, so keep an eye on the blog for that announcement.