Our mission is to connect people at a time when social distancing has become our new reality. When the Covid-19 Pandemic began, we knew reaching out to our Nana (who is 78 and lives by herself) was really important to help her feel less alone and connected to us. We knew we could Facetime and call her to make sure she was okay, but we were sad that we couldn’t have her in our home. We realized that many elderly people were now living in communities that were closed off to visits from family and friends. We know they might also be feeling isolated. We thought maybe we could help make them feel less alone and that is why we thought of building Pen Pals For Life: an opportunity to become a “grand-friend” to an elderly person. PenPalsForLife.com allows students and adults to sign up to become a Pen Pal. We will assign each participant an email address where they can send communications to their Senior Pen Pal. We are hoping each participant will write at least 2x a week to the Senior during this time of social distancing. In some cases, the Senior may be able to write back and in some cases, they may not. But either way, we hope that sharing stories, jokes, pictures or just a note of friendship will be uplifting and heartwarming to those elderly people alone in their communities and homes. We also believe it will be fulfilling and meaningful to the participants who choose to volunteer. We all know how hard this time is for everyone but we are so lucky to be able to be with our families and get a hug when things seem overwhelming. While we know we can’t fix what is going on around us in the world, it helps to know we are doing some small part to help out. We hope you will join us!