National Letter to an Elder Day, an unofficial yet officially recognized holiday by the USPS, is celebrated on February 26th. This day is dedicated to writing heartfelt letters to older adults who may be feeling isolated. The initiative was founded by Jacob Cramer, the founder of ‘Love for our Elders,’ in 2020.
"A letter is a beautiful thing; we have this program called ‘Dear Elder Mailboxes,’ which is letter writing and drop off stations, where anyone can share kind handwritten notes with local senior communities," Cramer said. "So no stamps or delivery details are needed, you just write a note and drop it off right there."
The non-profit started in 2013 by Cramer and since then, over 1,000,000 letters have been collected and given to older adults across the country and internationally. There are some guidelines for writing a letter, but Cramer said the most important thing is that a letter should be filled with love.
"Tell them, 'remember your love, that I'm thinking of you,' or 'I hope you're having a great day and that the sun is shining,'" he said. "Make sure to write a letter that anyone will feel good with, think about the kinds of content you might want to include, that can resonate with anyone, and then make sure that the print is legible and large," Cramer said. "A lot of people have trouble seeing and we want to make sure that anyone can read their letter."
Cramer said there's no limit to how many letters you can write.
"If you find a mailbox in your community, you can write as many letters as you want, we encourage it," he said. "You can even throw a letter writing social—that's what we call our little letter writing parties—when you get a group of people together to just make cards and write letters, that is like the most fun way to write cards."
There are several box locations across Texas, with three in Dallas-Ft Worth where you can drop off your hand-written letter. All locations can be found here.