Photo courtesy of the Grande Prairie Palliative Care Society

By Liam Verster

Virtual Pen Pals

Grande Prairie Palliative Care Society looking for Virtual Pen Pal participants

May 30, 2021 | 6:00 AM

The Grande Prairie Palliative Care Society is putting a call out to have people write to seniors through their Virtual Pen Pal program.

The program sees volunteers submit letters online, which are then shared with the seniors under the GPPCS’s care.

“Basically we take the letters and then we send them off to each senior,” says Samantha Turvey, the Office Administrator for GPPCS.

“Some seniors will get the same letters, and then if they want to write back they can, a lot of times they don’t depending on their physical impairments. If they want to write back, they can write back through us, and then we get it back to that person.”

GPPCS cares for over 1,100 seniors in 28 different facilities, so the more letters they receive, the more they can distribute and the more seniors they can reach.

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The letters can be submitted by email at volunteer@gpcare.ca. Submissions can either be written directly in the email, or be scanned copies or photos of hand written letters.

Since the submissions are online, Turvey says people can attach pictures or drawings, adding that the seniors are usually quite happy to hear from families and kids.

“Sometimes they can be really cute,” Turvey said.

“We had one little boy that wrote in and was like ‘My teacher told me to do this’ and the residents kind of thought it was funny and reminisced about when they were young and had to do school assignments.”

Turvey asks that anyone who wishes to participate in the program keep the content of the letters fairly family friendly, and not to include too much personal information. The letters may be shared on social media, but the writers will be contacted before then to get permission to show their letters online.

Participants who know other languages are also encouraged to let the GPPCS know so they can pair up the writer with a senior who speaks that language.

This is the second call the GPPCS has made to have people get involved in the Virtual Pen Pal program since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

READ MORE: Local seniors in isolation are receiving letters through the Virtual Pen Pal Program