Well, it's sort of a prompt!
This is from this week's letter from the editor in the Absolute Write Newsletter (coming your way today):
Remember I said a few weeks ago that I was going to try to find some things we can do as Absolute Write writers to help others? Well, here’s the first one:
http://www.writeseniors.com/
That’s a website for senior citizens looking for pen pals. It was started in 1999 by two teenagers as a community outreach program; the teens used to visit retirement homes and play piano for the residents, and realized that so many of them were lonely and didn’t want the teens to leave. So they took initiative and set out to honor seniors by helping them make connections with people, both in person and through e-mails.
Some of the seniors you’ll find profiled on the site do live in nursing homes or other facilities, but it appears that most live in their own homes or with family. They’re from all over the world. On this page, you can search for pen pals by country, birth month or year, or use keyword searches to find someone with interests similar to yours: http://www.writeseniors.com/penpals/ . You can also check out their newest members or “spotlight members.”
Who better to be a pen pal than a writer? I hope that you’ll choose to share your talent with someone who’d really like a new friend. Loneliness is pretty lousy, and I know how many good-hearted members we have here who might just be interested in making some new friends, too.
If you decide to do this, I’d love to hear about it...
This is from this week's letter from the editor in the Absolute Write Newsletter (coming your way today):
Remember I said a few weeks ago that I was going to try to find some things we can do as Absolute Write writers to help others? Well, here’s the first one:
http://www.writeseniors.com/
That’s a website for senior citizens looking for pen pals. It was started in 1999 by two teenagers as a community outreach program; the teens used to visit retirement homes and play piano for the residents, and realized that so many of them were lonely and didn’t want the teens to leave. So they took initiative and set out to honor seniors by helping them make connections with people, both in person and through e-mails.
Some of the seniors you’ll find profiled on the site do live in nursing homes or other facilities, but it appears that most live in their own homes or with family. They’re from all over the world. On this page, you can search for pen pals by country, birth month or year, or use keyword searches to find someone with interests similar to yours: http://www.writeseniors.com/penpals/ . You can also check out their newest members or “spotlight members.”
Who better to be a pen pal than a writer? I hope that you’ll choose to share your talent with someone who’d really like a new friend. Loneliness is pretty lousy, and I know how many good-hearted members we have here who might just be interested in making some new friends, too.
If you decide to do this, I’d love to hear about it...