With so many people taking summer vacations, this seemed like the perfect time to share a special website that I recently stumbled onto: Send Kids the World. How many times do you walk by shops selling postcards on your vacation? Send Kids the World features kids with life threatening illnesses and injuries and enables you to reach out to them and send them encouraging postcards from all around the world. What a simple way to provide a little bit of cheer to a family going through a difficult time. The mission statement is to reach out to every child and their family who deal with a serious illness, connecting all of them with good-hearted people who can send them occasional postcards to brighten up their daily lives.
You can go on Current Kids, click on the child’s name and read their story. Then you choose one child or several children. Once you choose a certain child, the address will pop up and you are ready to send the postcard and make the kids happy. The website encourages writing a cheerful short note, such as explaining about the picture on the front of the postcard and the place where you’re sending it from, or just a simple ‘Greetings from…’ You can also send a postcard with birthday wishes during a child’s birthday month.
Having your own children help with selecting and writing the postcards is a great way to teach them compassion and kindness. The site even has lesson plans and activities for schools that would like to do a service project. The lesson plans are geared toward grades 2-5 and cover language arts/literacy skills, geography, reading comprehension, art, and social studies.
If you know a child who fits the criteria and who could use some mail, be sure to let the family know how they can sign up for the program. Send Kids the World was created for children between ages 2 and 18 years old who have been diagnosed with a life threatening illness such as leukemia, tumors, or degenerative illnesses, who are undergoing treatment such as chemotherapy and radiation, or those who are waiting for a transplant, and who are undergoing treatment or are recovering from a life threatening injury such as amputation, burns, or head injuries.
I hope this post will encourage your family to send these children some mail from time-to-time. You can sign up for an occasional reminder e-mail with information about the newest faces on the site. Here are some additional instructions for how to get started. What a simple way to make a difference. Not traveling for awhile? Stop by some on-line retailers and search for postcards – you can even find kits for kids to design their own!
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Stacy Juba has written sweet and sassy chick lit novels, mysteries about determined women sleuths, and entertaining books for young adults and children. Her books include the Storybook Valley chick lit series and the Hockey Rivals young adult sports novels.
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Love this idea, Stacy!
This is awesome…
Thanks for checking it out, PJ and Clover! I knew that my writing friends would understand the power of the written word, and the pleasure from the art on the front of the postcard. All kids love to get mail, but as the website indicates, letter-writing is really becoming a lost art.