About PenPals:

Kids love to get mail!  For parents and teachers that are always trying to get their children motivated to write, pen pal friendships can be an excellent way to support children's reading and writing development!  It gives children a way to share information about themselves, their family, favorite things, interests, hobbies, etc.  An ongoing pen pal friendship can help children learn about each other.  The use of the postal service in a pen pal friendship allows children to learn about how the postal service works, exchange photos, inspirational stories, and other small items which are interesting to children.  Children often enjoy looking at the letters and stamps that arrive from other places.   Lastly, writing "paper" letters encourages children with a real purpose to learn parts of a letter and how to address an envelope. There are many other benefits to these programs as well:

• Gives the child something to look forward to (in their mailbox)
• Gives a child the opportunity make a special friend to write to
• Provides valuable practice at writing letters in the proper format (which is a Language Arts standard)
• Provides an increased awareness of different cultures, customs & societies from all around the world (can be tied in with Social Studies, Geography & more!)
• Give them a chance to maintain ongoing communication with people who live far away
• Increases odds that your students/child will continue to be letter writers for the rest of their lives
• Can be motivating and interesting when their pen pal lives in another state or country
• It encourages children to work on their punctuation, spelling, grammar & capitalization
• It allows the child to write with a real purpose and audience for their writing.

To request a pen pal, please read the following:

If you are an individual or a family requesting a pen pal(s) please gather up the following information:

1. Your complete name and contact information.
2. Where you are located (country, city, state, etc.)
3. The name, age and gender of the child(ren) that we may match them up accordingly.

If you are a teacher/class or with a group please gather up the following information:

1. You complete name and contact information.
2. Where you are located (country, city, state, etc.)
3.What grade(s) the children are in.
4. The name, age and gender of each child so that we may match them up accordingly.

In addition to a standard Pal Pal program, we have some specific programs created by families and individuals.

As soon as our Pen Pal program reopens and resumes accepting new Pen Pals, we will make an announcement on this page and provide a link for you to send your information.

Please know that it can take from a few days to a few weeks to find a pen pal match and longer if you are looking for a pen pal outside of the USA.

Ghana Pen Pals
This pen pal program was inspired by The Dillon Family from the Chicago, IL area who contacted us to see if we would charter a pen pal program through Kids Helping Kids.  It’s one of the best things we did.  This program has many benefits for both the children writing the letters to the Ghanaian children and those receiving the letters.  It inspires them to write back, supports them and feeds their spirits so they know that someone is thinking about them and sending them encouragement.  It started locally and within a short time we received emails from kids from places such as Australia, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea & Indonesia.  Faith was our very first pen pal  who signed up for two different Ghanaian pen pals.  The look on Faith's face in this picture taken on the day she received her first letter from her pen pal in Africa is priceless! 

Letters From Katrina
Letters from Katrina is a special Pen Pal Program that unites classrooms around the U.S. with classrooms that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Louisiana.  This program has been custom tailored to provide support and encouragement to the children who still face the challenges this devastating catastrophe left them with.  Our pen pal coordinator Kim Lemaire comes and visits a classroom that is interested in becoming a pen pal with a class in Mississippi our Louisiana.  She shows a video about the circumstances these children survivors are living in and provides the book “Letters From Katrina” (www.lettersfromkatrina.com) for each child to write their first letter in.  For over 15 years Kim has been using her camera lens to capture the full range of human emotion and creating lasting memories.  As seen in the book, "Letters From Katrina" she captures the spirit in each child featured. 

Letters from Katrina is a collection of powerful memories and overwhelming circumstances as seen through the eyes of children that experienced this cataclysmic event.  Kim’s first hand experience of visiting the children in the aftermath of Katrina and her involvement with the creation of this book of inspiring testimonies has brought this program and her love of those children to life. 

After the video is watched and the books are signed we then mail the books to the matched class in Mississippi or Louisiana and that launches the program.  The children survivors keep the book as hope from a friend.  We are teaching them that no matter what the distance between us is, no matter what the color of our skin is or the amount of money in our pocket, that we are all in this together and help each other in times of need.  A child’s spirit is amazingly strong and incredibly forgiving.  In “Letters from Katrina”, these children tell children around the world that no matter what happens to you, we can make it - together!  

In order to reach more classrooms around the United States we need support.  It is just $10 to sponsor one book for this program or $120 per case when donations are made through Kids Helping Kids.  That money not only goes towards the purchase of the books but 100% what you donate goes to the Katrina Endowment which will provide college scholarship opportunities for the children in Hancock County, Mississippi.