RENO, Nev. (KOLO) - Carson Valley Senior
Living started a Pen Pal program for its seniors during the pandemic.
The program started with a simple social media post. Employees snapped
photos of seniors and highlighted a few of their favorite things.
Life
Enrichment Director Adrianna Ward said, “I want to say we received over
a hundred letters. We had about four care packages come in, between
crossword puzzles, succulent plants, goodies, and the candies that they
like.”
Ward didn’t expect the facility
would get an overwhelming response. She said, “So we started the pen
pal July 6th and the post went viral, within a week we had over 40,000
people reach out.”
Seniors Lorraine
Strazi and Susan Rielley responded back to their new pen pals. Strazi
said, “I apologized for my handwriting because it was yucky.” Rielley
said, “I wrote back, she has to write back, you know, you have to wait,
you know how mail is.”
According to Ward these new formed
friendships have made a difference for these seniors. The facility
scaled down on visitation hours since the pandemic. “With the window
visits we are doing and now we are doing outdoor family visits for 30
minutes, it’s still not enough sometimes for them.”
She
continued, “To have that constant writing it keeps their mind going and
they just love getting that attention and knowing that there are people
out there during this pandemic that people do care.”
Increased loneliness and isolation are two heartbreaking consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, inspiring one network of care homes in North Carolina to proactively promote a pen pal program for residents.
Officials
say the center has since been “overwhelmed” by an outpouring of love
and support since the campaign went viral on social media, with letters
arriving from around the world.
Victorian Senior Care operates 14 nursing homes and assisted living facilities across the Tar Heel State, and has restricted visitors since March 13 for the health and safety of its residents amid the COVID-19 crisis.
To help beat the blues after months of isolation, Victorian Senior
Care recently sent out a call to action, asking the public to send
letters to residents at Phoenix Assisted Care in Cary, Fox 5 DC
reports. Exceeding expectations, the late June pitch went wildly viral
on Facebook with over 327,000 shares, 37,000 likes and 16,000 comments.
In
the weeks since, the care center has shared images of residents from
other locations who hope to receive snail mail of their own. For the
cute campaign, Victorian Senior Care is posting photos of the residents
with a sign listing their name and a fun fact or information about their
hobbies or interests, in search of a perfect pen pal match.
Thanking program participants in an update
last Tuesday, the care home said that they have been “overwhelmed with
the outpouring of love and support not just from our own state or
country but from all around the world!”
“Our residents are truly the reason we do what we do and seeing the
excitement and smiles on their faces make our day,” a spokesperson wrote
on Facebook.
According to Victorian Senior Care’s chief operating
officer Meredith Seals, about 15,000 letters and care package items
have poured in since the pitch went viral.
“There are so many
people whom have reached out wanting to help, we are trying to respond
to everyone quickly but having trouble keeping up,” she told Yahoo Lifestyle on Wednesday. “[It] warms my heart that so many people care.”
The care center is still seeking letter-writing buddies for the
#VSCPenPals project; those interested can learn more about potential
partners on the Victorian Senior Care site.
This letter came to Marleen Brooks from a 90-year-old neighbor in search of a friend (Marleen Brooks)
This
past spring, Marleen Brooks, a 37-year-old property manager in the
small town of Park Hills, Mo., came home to find a handwritten letter
from a 90-year-old woman she had never met.
It was just a few lines:
Would
you consider to become my friend. I'm 90 years old — live alone and all
my friends have passed away. I am so lonesome and scared. Please — I
pray for some one.
As Brooks read the letter,
her eyes teared up. Her own grandmother, who had raised her, had died
alone in hospice, which still bothered her. The letter-writer, Wanda
Mills, had left an address — a house across the street and a couple of
doors down. "I literally, honestly didn't know anybody lived there,"
said Brooks, who has lived on the street for a year and a half.
The next day, she and a friend brought cupcakes to Mills.
"She
was excited that we came over there, and we sat and talked for about an
hour," Brooks recalled. Mills, who has trouble walking and uses oxygen,
told her that she hadn't left her house in seven years and relies on
caregivers who come daily. But they weren't the same as having friends.
Mills had lived in the house for 51 years. Her husband
and sister had died, as had one of her sons. Another son lived out of
state. It turned out that a third son lived next door but didn't visit
often, she told Brooks.
Loneliness and isolation
have been shown to have detrimental effects on health, leaving people
more vulnerable to infection, cognitive decline and depression. An AARP
survey found more than one third of older Americans to be lonely.
Brooks
wondered how many others out there were living like Mills, unknown to
their neighbors. She took a picture of the letter and posted it on
Facebook, urging people to make sure to check on their neighbors and
inviting them to send letters to Mills, and opened a post office box for
her.
Marleen Brooks visits Wanda Mills in the nursing home where she moved recently (James Brooks)
Then she had an idea: Why not invite people to write to more people than just Mills? In late April, she started a Facebook group called Pen Pals for Seniors, offering to match participants with older people who want to correspond by mail.
In
a little more than a month, around 6,000 people had responded — far
more than she had older people for them to write to. "We're still
actively trying to find seniors," she said, adding that she has posted
fliers and sent letters to churches, senior centers, home health
agencies and nursing homes to let them know about the service. "That's
been the hardest part."
So far, around 500 letters
have been exchanged. Members include a mail carrier in Ohio who had
isolated seniors on her route. Brooks said high school classmates that
she hadn't heard from for years have contacted her. Employees at her
local post office call her "Pen Pal Girl."
Rosina
Ragusa of Hawthorne, N.J., saw the service on Facebook and signed up
after her own mother died in July. "It kind of just broke my heart,
because I thought, 'What if I hadn't been there for my mother?' " she
said. "You just never know who needs a friend."
The act of writing a letter on a piece of paper has
brought Ragusa back to her childhood, when she had a pen pal in Japan.
"I love it, I love having to sit down and think about what I'm writing
instead of the quick responses with a cellphone and a computer."
Georgia
Parker, 40, of Dittmer, Mo., corresponds with a woman in her late 60s
in Windsor, Canada. Her own mother died two years ago, but "as you go
through life and things happen, I want to call my mother and I want to
tell her about it. I can write Faye and tell her," she said. "It's good
to still have that connection with the older generation."
Another
member, D'Linda Wallace of Munsing, Mich., said that in the store where
she works, older customers often want to linger and talk. Seeing
Mills's letter on Facebook made her wonder how many of them suffered
from loneliness and isolation.
"I don't think
people are going to always say, 'I'm lonely,' " said Wallace, who has
exchanged a dozen letters with her pen pal since she signed up three
months ago. "I don't think it's going to be revealed, due to people's
pride and stuff, but I think it's more widespread than you would ever
know."
Marleen Brooks with letters from members of Pen Pals for Seniors (James Brooks)
A
couple of weeks ago, Mills moved to a nursing home; Brooks and her
husband and sons visit regularly. Speaking on the phone from her room
there, Mills told The Washington Post that hardly anyone had visited her
at home in recent years.
"Neighbors don't neighbor
like people used to. Neighbors used to visit each other. But they don't
do that there, I don't guess they do anywhere."
In fact, when Brooks initially showed up at her door in response to the letter, she was surprised.
"I needed friends," she said, adding, "I thought it was nice, to want to help somebody."
