Cynthia MacQuarrie, center, shares a laugh with pen pals Aubreigh and Luke.
Pen pals from the Trafton Center and St. Thomas School gather for a photo op during a get-together for the program.
Pen pals Erlene Lamontagne of the Trafton Center and Oliva Klosowski, an eighth grader from St. Thomas School, share a moment during a get together last fall.
Photos: St. Thomas School
By Kat Szmit
In a K-8 Catholic school in Sanford, students in seventh and eighth grade are making valuable connections with elders in their community, and they’re doing it not digitally, but the old-fashioned way: by sending letters through the mail.
This is the Pen Pal Partnership between students at St. Thomas Consolidated School and the Trafton Center, a regional senior center for adults 50 and older, also in Sanford. Ericka Sanborn, director of marketing, enrollment, and legacy at St. Thomas, was the school’s English teacher six years ago when she picked up on something.
“I noticed that letter writing was not something my students were very well versed with,” Sanborn said. “We were advanced with texting, but I thought it would be important for them to understand a mode of communication where you had to get to know someone through writing a letter.”
Sanborn said the students had no idea what to do, so she started them at the beginning – the basics of a good letter. She also wanted them to have someone to write to. She had worked with Trafton Center Director Robin Bibber on intergenerational programming prior to coming to St. Thomas and reached out.
“Here we are, six years later,” Sanborn said. “It’s just been amazing. It has become more than letter writing. Great friendships have been developed, friendships that transcend age and life experience.”
Through the monthly exchanges, pen pals discover what they have in common, what similarities exist despite different experiences, and what a joy it is to get a letter.
Cynthia MacQuarrie, a Trafton Center pen pal, is in her fourth year with the program. She typically writes to two students, a boy and a girl.
“Because I’m a tomboy,” she said, laughing. “I can tell Luke about what I do at my home, and then the girl, I can tell her all about my knitting and housekeeping and cooking. I get to know them. Really know them. I almost get to the point where I could love them to death.”
Eighth grader Luke Michaud looks forward to hearing from Cynthia, as well.
“Her husband was in the military for three years. Her cat’s name is the same name as my niece’s,” he said. “I can tell she’s lived a pretty good life.”
Michaud said the best part of the program is the bond between pen pals.
“It kind of connects people, especially the younger ones to the older ones, and it also kind of makes sense. Seventh and eighth graders are the oldest ones [at St. Thomas], and we’re talking to the oldest ones,” he said. “It’s great. I like it a lot.”
“I think we have some amazing pen pals,” said English/language arts teacher Tiffani Bourque. “The kids are amazed. Last year we did a pretty large unit on the Holocaust in ELA, and we had many of our students talking about how their pen pals were alive, perhaps quite young, while that was happening.”
Bourque said it gives students a connection with the subjects they’re learning in school, while Bibber said it fosters understanding.
“I think that people have misconceptions about other groups,” Bibber said. “Older people sometimes think kids are terrible because they read stories about terrible kids doing terrible things. But they’re learning that these kids are great kids. And the kids are learning that old people are not decrepit and falling down all the time. They’re doing some amazing things. You shouldn’t be afraid of what you don’t know.”
“Well, they do think you’re an old, decrepit lady,” said MacQuarrie, laughing. “And then you turn around and start writing and tell them what you do. In one of my last letters I told my pen pal that the only thing I won’t do at my home is go up on the roof.”
In her closing she told him she was 85 years old.
Erlene Lamontagne has been a Trafton Center pen pal for three years, writing to eighth grader Olivia Klosowski for the past two about a little bit of everything – cheerful recaps of summer adventures, music they enjoy, and holiday traditions.
“I like just learning about what they’re doing at their age that’s different from our age growing up, which is miles apart,” Erlene said. “But being able to connect with each other even though our ages are so different, it’s like having a friend to write back and forth to.”
“I like connecting with other people and telling them about myself,” said Klosowski. “I like spending time with them and writing letters to them about what I do in my free time. I think it’s nice to get a letter back. They tell you what they’ve been up to.”
Bourque said the letters are a popular topic in school.
“They’re talking about the letters all the time,” she said. “I love hearing when they’re reading their letters out loud about something that their pen pal might have done when the pen pal was 13. Yes, times are different and the world is different, but really, it boils down to the same thing: Teenagers are teenagers.”
Bibber said the program expands minds and hearts.
“I think people live in silos a little too much,” she said. “I really love the fact that it’s young and old connecting and developing relationships. I think what the kids learn from the pen pals will stick with them as they age and move on to high school. And I know what the pen pals learn about the kids will stick with them.”
According to Sanborn, more than a few of the pen pals have continued their writing relationship after the students have graduated and gone on to high school.
“That’s been a pleasant surprise,” Sanborn said. “That it’s continued in many ways. I wish more schools would think about doing something like this. There’s so much to learn. I always say, ‘We learn that we are more alike than unalike.’ This is one way that kids have been finding this out.”
But what about that cursive? Well, it just so happens that at St. Thomas, it’s not a lost art. They learn it in third grade, and the pen pal program has inspired many students to set aside their laptops and hand-write their letters.
“The typed letters look nice, but I love when they hand write them,” Bourque said. “They’re so special.”
Sanborn hopes that whether the pen pals stay in touch once the St. Thomas students graduate, they recall this time fondly.
“One day, when these kids graduate and they become older and think back to their school days, I hope they remember with fondness this piece of their time here,” she said. “I do think it’s unique and special, so that’s my wish.”
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