Did you see this recent story in the news? It’s amazing! ABC’s Person of the Week

Go look… I’ll wait for you to come back.

Okay, if you go to the Wish Upon a Hero site you can search for wishes that involve sending cards or letters. Grant any wish you want, but be sure to also send some cards and letters while you are there. You’ll make someone’s day!

Hannah Nicklin, the lovely English playwright, wants to write more letters. Through her I recently discovered the web site postletters.org — “a UK-based, worldwide movement to encourage, promote and take delight in the activity of writing letters and sending post.”

If you go over to the site you can request to join the movement and at some time in the future you will be sent an interesting missive that will hopefully inspire you to write more letters. In fact, that’s the whole purpose of the web site — to get you fired up and get to writing.

Zip over there ASAP and enjoy yourself. Support the movement! Support letter writing!

I think most people are familiar with Amnesty International’s great work for human rights via their letter writing campaigns. In America we have a long tradition of government official listening when we rise up and create a big voice for change. (Well, mostly.) But I have never been entirely convinced that this works in other countries where democracy is not at work.

Recently I ran across a great article entitled, “Does Letter Writing Really Work?” It briefly talks about the Urgent Action Network and had an inspiring video. It also has links to some of their success stories and a link where you can join to get notices on ways you can take action through letter writing.

I was recently reading this post on the postal service rate increase coming up. Personally, I always hate to see it, but know it’s a necessary evil of the times.

However, this article in particular was really depressing. They said the effects of the rate increase are a “drop in the bucket”. I own my own business and it’s second nature to me to automatically think about how I could improve and optimize anything related to my business and this habit also slops over to other people’s businesses too. (And unfortunately results in me handing out a lot of unsolicited advice much to my husband’s dismay.)

So, I was thinking, what could be done to save the post office in this changing world of mail? There is an evolutionary turn happening in that industry and I thought about several things — first of all the future of letter writing if the post office is in serious trouble and second, what would I do if I was in this type of business? It’s not a simple fact of just changing some business practices… the real problem is that if you don’t have a crystal ball, how do you know how to evolve your business when your entire industry is flipping on its axis?

It’s a really tough question! Maybe we need to come up with some of our own ideas. We can march to Washington with our list and wait outside the Postmaster General’s office. It may take letter writers to save them.

What should they do? How about:

1. Celebrity endorsements like the “got milk?” campaign. Good grief, if drinking milk can be made to look cool, how hard could it be to make letter writing cool?
2. Create a more profitable division of the USPS such as a product division where you can have a lot of low wholesale cost, high profit merchandise. This has been done to a small extent, but not done nearly as well as it COULD be.
3. Have you noticed how well the U.S. Mint is doing? Take a clue from the Mint and capitalize on the needs and desires of collectors.
4. Hook the children early. A snail mailer’s club with quarterly or monthly newsletter. Get kids excited about sending letters and chances are it’s a love that will stay with them all their lives.
5. Encourage and promote mail art. Support mail artists and their showings. Marketing department needs to highlight more interesting things that go through the mail.
6. Grass roots campaigns. Utilize passionate local citizens to do your marketing for you. Enthusiastic volunteers can teach letter writing classes through local libraries — from nuts and bolts how-to classes to more creative and free-spirited methods of communicating by mail. This one has limitless possibilities and could be a good money maker since the only investment would be in coordinating the program. The cost on a local level is nearly nothing since it’s all done on a volunteer basis.
7. More school outreach, also on volunteer basis.
8. Form an unpaid advisory commission of passionate and enthusiastic and knowledgeable letter writers to meet 2-3 times per year to help plan and design low-cost, high return programs.

Okay, those are my ideas… please add your own in the comments section. If you will do your part and help brainstorm ideas I will put them all in a professional format and petition to Postmaster General to heed our call for change at the USPS. Let’s do it in time for the rate hike in May. Let’s get to work!

Here is an inspiring story about a young gentleman, a kind and honorable boyscout, who decided he wanted to make a difference for soldiers serving in Iraq.

If this doesn’t inspire you to write a letter, I don’t know what will!

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/1376065,5_1_WA14_GILETTERS_S1.article#

The lovely and kind Mama Jamz pointed out to me the heartwarming program called Chemo Angels. This organization connects chemo patients with “angels” who send them weekly letters and small gifts in order to support them through the difficult experience of fighting cancer.

One must apply and be approved to be an angel, but what a fabulous program. If you’ve got the time and resources, I’d encourage you to apply. Think of the difference you could make! If you CANNOT join, then go over there and at least read the program and tell ten friends. Or send them a note of encouragement to tell them how awesome they are.

There is also an additional program you can find out about while there — the Senior Angels. This is the same type of program, but you would be writing people in nursing homes or those who are housebound. I wish I had known about this program when my grandmother was in the nursing home!

Mama Jamz, thanks again so much for telling me about this!

Well, I recently read an article in which letter writing has been put on the endangered species list along with pit toilets, phone landlines, VCRs, swimming holes, honey bees and bowling alleys (among others).

They’ve listed hand-written letters as #9, but it’s interesting to read the whole list.

Now, you know what happens when something gets on an endangered list. People get nostalgic and rush out and start movements to create awareness. Can we be bold and energetic and keep letter writing alive? Can each of you influence one or two friends to write more letters? Let’s do it, let’s keep it alive.