Letters to the kids

It's back-to-school time across most of the U.S., and people of all ages are headed back to the
classroom. From the kindergartner just getting started to the 50-year-old going back to get a higher degree, students can be stressed out about what lies ahead.

This is a great time to perfect the short, uplifting letter format. For the youngsters, such a "letter" doesn't have to be in the traditional form at all. It can be just a note, even a simple friendly phrase, such as "I'm thinking of you," or a short joke:

Q. What is the difference between a school teacher and a train?

A. The teacher says spit your gum out, and the train says "chew, chew!”

For the older kids going off to college, a longer letter of encouragement would be appropriate. And, for the non-traditional student returning to school after a long absence, a nice card would brighten his or her day.

Melissa over at the blog 320 Sycamore has a great list of jokes to include in kids' lunch boxes. You'll need to click on the link in her blog post to get to the jokes.

Blog About A Collection of Letters

Lisa Smith writes The Sloane Letters Blog, a site about the correspondence of Sir Hans Sloane, an eighteenth-century physician, botanist and collector.

The blog includes many interesting tidbits from the letters, as well as several links to other sites of historical nature.

It's an interesting read.

'Snail mail is cool'

"Snail mail is cool," 10-year-old Eloise Barrett is quoted as saying in an article about pen pals in the "Hills News."

Eloise lives in Australia, and she and her schoolmates at Galston Public School were matched with pen pals in Ireland.

"The kids found it really interesting because they found they had things in common," said their teacher Jackie Payne.

Check out the story through the above link for more about how the younger generation enjoys letter writing when they have a chance to experience it!

(Clip art courtesy of http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart)

Two of my favorite things — Girl Scouts and letters!

Here's a great story about some Girl Scouts who collected 610 thank you letters to show appreciation
for UNICEF workers. The girls are from Garden City, N.Y.

Click that link above to read the entire, inspiring story!

New stamp commemorates March on Washington

Today, the U.S. Postal Service issued a new stamp commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.


On Aug. 28, 1963, nearly a quarter of a million people came together in Washington, DC, to participate in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was then that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his powerful “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. 

According to the USPS website, the 1963 March on Washington stamp is the last of three stamps issued this year as part of a civil rights series commemorating courage, strength and equality in America. The first Forever stamp marked the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation in January, while the second Forever stamp honored Rosa Parks on the 100th anniversary of her birth in February.

In addition to offering the March on Washington stamp, the UPS also has T-shirts, commemorative panels, keepsake sets and more.

Sixty Years of Round-Robin Letters

The summer edition of the Colby College magazine features an article on a group of 11 women who graduated from Colby (in Waterville, Maine) in 1952 and started a round-robin letter-writing circle.

Sixty years later, they're still writing letters.

It seems there are several different ways a round-robin can work. For the group in the story, it seems that each one writes a letter, adds it to an envelope with the other letters she just received and mails the package on to the next in line. When the package makes it way back to each letter writer, she takes out her last letter, reads all of the other new letters and adds her own new letter before sending it on again.

Other round-robins seem more formal, while some are less organized. Have you ever participated in a round-robin letter-writing project? How did it work?

(Clip art courtesy of http://www.wpclipart.com/)

Great blog post about the letter that was never sent

Ashley Woods writes in her blog on The Huffington Post about the letter she wishes she would've written to author Elmore Leonard, who died yesterday at the age of 87.

It's not just a great commentary on Leonard, but it's also an encouragement to sit down and write that letter (or letters) you've been meaning to write. Especially important are the letters that tell someone how much they mean to you, how they've influenced your life, how you're so happy to have met them.

If you've been putting off writing an important letter, set a goal. Today is Wednesday...set the goal to put that letter in the mail on Monday. That gives you a few days to make sure you have everything you need, stationery, stamps, address. Then, you have the weekend to actually write the letter. On Monday morning, drop that letter in the mailbox on your way to work, school or the market.

Don't wait until it's too late to say (or, in this case, write) the feelings that are in your heart.