Pen pals: Bain, Stadium students connect through art of letter writing

By Jen Cowart
Posted 5/18/16

In a day and age where many people communicate solely by text and email, typing with thumbs or speaking into a device, the students at Stadium Elementary School and Hugh B. Bain Middle School have brought back the art of letter writing. For

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Pen pals: Bain, Stadium students connect through art of letter writing

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In a day and age where many people communicate solely by text and email, typing with thumbs or speaking into a device, the students at Stadium Elementary School and Hugh B. Bain Middle School have brought back the art of letter writing.

For six months, the students in Sheri Brown Hamel’s Project Respect club at Bain and the third-graders in LoAnn Natale and Kathy Perry’s classes at Stadium have been writing letters back and forth, as part of a program started by Brown Hamel and Stadium’s social worker, Katie Chesson.

“We matched up the kids and they have been writing letters, but they don’t know each other’s names,” said Brown Hamel. “We have kept it anonymous, but they have given each other clues to tell a little bit about themselves each time.”

On Friday, May 6, the anonymity came to an end, as the Project Respect students took the trip over to Stadium to meet their young pen pals. They brought activities that would connect them to their pen pals throughout the morning.

At Stadium School, the anticipation was building as the third-graders awaited the arrival of the middle school students. When asked why she was particularly dressed up, one student replied conspiratorially that it was part of her clue – that she’d previously written that she likes to wear dresses, so she was sure to wear one to school that day in order to help her middle school writing buddy find her.

“I brought a mingler game where the students mix and mingle, and each student has a card that matches up with their buddy’s card,” Brown Hamel said. “They find their match and then go and sit together to learn more about each other.”

The students discussed their likes and dislikes and found both similarities and differences while they participated in the various other icebreaker activities that morning.

“At the end, I’ll hand out Tootsie Pops,” Brown Hamel said. “It’s to show them that they’re all different on the outside, but all the same on the inside.”

That same theme was reflected in a non-speaking video the older students prepared for the younger ones.

“It had messages in it which told the students that even though we’re older, we still have a lot in common, like family backgrounds and common interests,” Brown Hamel said.

Over the six-month timeframe, the Project Respect students sent over other treats to their writing buddies, such as green bracelets on April 1, which was April Friends Day.

As the morning’s activities began, Brown Hamel addressed the younger students, assuring them that her students were extremely excited to be there and couldn’t wait to meet them, and neither could she.

“The whole point of today is to have fun, to socialize with your upper classmates, and then before you know it, the years will pass and you’ll be passing through the doors of Bain, and I’ll be there waiting for you,” she said. 

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