Grade 6 student Jazlyn Green and 67-year-old Orrie Whitford meet for the first time outside Margaret Wooding School in Redcliff after exchanging letters for five months as part of the Community Foundation's pen pal project.--NEWS PHOTO KELLEN TANIGUCHI
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After months of sending letters to each other, Grade 6 students at Margaret Wooding School in Redcliff met their senior pen pal partner in person on Friday afternoon.
The Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta started a pen pal project in 2020 to bring seniors and youth together during times of isolation and quarantine. The foundation approached a Grade 6 teacher at Margaret Wooding School who was eager to get her students involved.
“When I heard about the opportunity, I was thrilled. Especially during the pandemic time, it was a no-brainer,” said Keri Schiebelbein. “I wanted to get my students involved, help my students with their writing and try to make a difference in the community.”
Students met their pen pals in front of the school to finally put a face to the name they’ve been writing to since November.
“I was actually pretty excited about doing a pen pal project with new people,” said Jazlyn Green, one of the Grade 6 students. “Normally we do it with people from a younger grade or older grade and this was actually really exciting because we don’t know these people and it was fun talking to them.”
The students wrote letters one week and the seniors wrote letters the following week and this process continued throughout the entirety of the project. Green wrote her letters to Orrie Whitford, a local 67-year-old.
“I was very happy and excited to do it because you don’t write letters to people any more and Jazy’s a very, very good writer,” said Whitford. “I’ve got long, long letters with pictures and it’s fun to meet somebody you would never really have a chance to really chat with in any other way because your paths might never really cross.”
Green and Whitford wrote about places they’d like to travel to and learned about each other – Green is a dancer and Whitford’s daughter runs a theatre company in Toronto.
The Southeastern Community Foundation had students fill out paperwork to learn what their interests and hobbies were and tried to match them with a senior who had some similarities, says Schiebelbein.
Schiebelbein says she would give students prompts and topics to write about and they tried to focus on the positive side of things. She adds her students were engaged with the project and hopes to continue doing work with seniors even after the pandemic is over.
“Honestly, when we would open our mail it felt like Christmas,” said Schiebelbein. “It was fun for me to watch as a teacher the excitement and that enthusiasm lasted from week to week and it was an incredible experience.
The project was a success and the Community Foundation received feedback that the seniors enjoyed writing to the students.
“We did some surveys with the seniors and just asked how they found the project and a lot of them just shared how exciting and joyful it was to hear from young people and that most of the conversations didn’t surround COVID. They were just excited for the future and it brought a lot of encouragement to the seniors,” said Sydney Retzlaff, Community Foundation’s office and project co-ordinator.
She says it was also nice to see the seniors and students look forward to receiving their letters each week and she’s glad they were able to run the project in a low-contact way following all COVID protocols.
Whitford’s husband also participated in the project and Green’s friend, Dane, wrote letters to him which sparked some friendly competition.
“I enjoyed it a lot. Me and my friend Dane actually competed for who could write the longest letter,” said Green with a laugh.
Whitford confirmed Green “hands down” sent the longest.
