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HappyGram expands letter, card delivery service to Cedar Rapids schools
Elementary students connect with soldiers, older adults
Nov. 30, 2024 6:00 am, Updated: Dec. 2, 2024 10:49 am
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CEDAR RAPIDS — On a recent Friday afternoon, Kinsley McEnany found new purpose for a favorite pastime.
The 10-year-old fifth-grader at St. Matthew Elementary School already likes to draw in her spare time. But now, she has another reason.
This day’s assignment in Mrs. Bates’ library and computer science class at St. Matthew Elementary School was free style: draw something to show appreciation to veterans on Veterans Day. As the boys in her class drew eagles and military equipment, she found other patriotic symbols to home in on.
Throughout the class period, she detailed a soldier saluting with his hand to his temple as fireworks burst in the background to illuminate a flag wavering.
“I just want them to think it’s good,” she said. “They’ll feel like they’re important, and everyone deserves to feel important.”
As her other friends shooed the boys away from the established girls corner, she realized her flesh-colored marker was a bit darker than anticipated — perhaps more peach than skin-tone. But she continued, unbothered, to finish the mission at hand.
“He lives in Florida, actually,” she improvised about the man on the paper, giving him more of a tan as the color choice was brought to her attention.
The students in Tiffany Bates’ class care about their pictures not because of a grade, but because it’s being given to others. Since the spring semester, students in her classes have been drawing for various holidays, new seasons and more. Each time, their drawings and letters are scanned, uploaded and sent to seniors or veterans in various communities around the United States and Scotland.
The initiative is part of a new expansion for HappyGram, a service that offers people of all ages a way to digitize their handwritten letters, drawings and photos, while still delivering them to older adults in a way that’s accessible and personal — on paper.
The service, started in 2014, has exploded in growth over the last several years. In the last 10 years, the service has processed 100,000 HappyGrams.
But now, as teachers bring it to students in St. Matthew and Roosevelt Creative Corridor Business Academy, what’s old is new again. As students learn to write and draw for new audiences, seniors receiving their scanned and printed correspondence are responding in droves.
It’s a new way to form pen pals.
Teaching communication and kindness
Bates said that communication habits and abilities have changed substantially over the 17 years since she started teaching in 2007 — the year the first Apple iPhone ushered in an era of smartphone ubiquity and rapid advances that made digital technology more integrated into daily life.
She said she has to encourage students to ask more questions, even the basic ones that are part of small talk, to help them develop what were previously natural — even if mundane — conversation skills. Questions like: How are you? What did you do today? What do you do in your free time?
All that has gone away, she said, in favor of communication habits that are quicker and get to the point without the art of a conversation that builds relationships and social skills.
“Everything is so instantaneous,” Bates said. “The majority of our problems are because people don’t communicate clearly.”
But more than its utility, she hopes the pen pal relationships will be an experience of learning about others, rather than enriching themselves for the sake of personal gain.
“I like the connection for everybody. The young need to be with the old, and the old need to be with the young,” she said. “I feel like we have so much to learn from each other.”
For adults and children alike, it’s a gateway connection that has shocked recipients not expecting a stranger to write to them or care about them.
Folks in senior living communities all over have replied in kind with stacks of stickers, books, letters and more. The farthest response came from a man in Scotland; the oldest respondent was 106.
“One of the most touching responses I received was from a child of an elderly person. Their parent has dementia,” Bates said. “They happened to see these (HappyGrams) in her room. She had them tacked up on her board.”
Therein, Bates sees another lesson in this simple curriculum: spreading kindness.
“This is an easy way to touch somebody else’s life that’s not going to cost you anything,” she said. “What I’m hoping for them to keep is the whole idea that it doesn’t take a lot of make somebody’s day or make somebody else happy.”
Rekindling intimacy in communications
Bob and Mary Beth Helgens started HappyGram with their children in 2014 after a sad realization. While visiting Bob’s father in Florida, they watched older adults check their mailboxes and leave dejected, with only bills and junk mail.
Bob wanted a way to get them more mail from loved ones that was personal and meaningful. Phone calls are great, but some struggle to hear. Technology has helped bridge families far away, but can be challenging for many to use.
Even a text message or an email lacks the warmth that the older generations can examine with their hands.
In turn, children are learning how to write letters, be creative, and cultivate a sense of emotional connection with someone who isn’t right in front of them.
But it’s not just children using it. The service, run daily by Bob, has grown significantly since the pandemic.
Some messages he processes are simple: “Hi, Gary. I love you, and I’m glad you are my brother.”
Others are heartwarming, like a teen holding a photo of his pie: “Grandma, I made your recipe.”
Kylie Alger, cofounder and daughter of Bob Helgens and health and wellness columnist for The Gazette, said her favorite is a picture of a rainbow in a backyard, sent during a time when phone service was likely limited for the sender.
“Hi Daddy, wanted to let you know we’re safe and have only minor damage. We were in the path of Hurricane Ian,” it said. “See the beautiful rainbow? It reminds me that even in the storms of life, God is with us.”
“There’s an intimacy that’s a reflection of what’s going on in life,” Alger said. “It’s time out of your day.”
It’s something each recipient can point to as evidence they matter to others, and they are loved.
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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