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American Heritage Girls founder Patti Garibay is giving young girls a chance to connect the old-fashioned way – by becoming pen pals.
“It’s just a beautiful way to have a memory and also to have great communication with someone that they don’t even know.”
Garibay says girls are used to a lot of disappointment, especially through negative interactions on social media. But the AHG Pen Pal program gives them a chance to foster meaningful and lasting relationships.
“It is a wonderful way for likeminded girls to really foster relationship and that’s doing the old-fashioned handwritten letters that are sent to each other,” says Garibay. She says writing letters to each other is “a beautiful way to have a memory and also to have great communication with someone that they don’t even know.”
Garibay believes there’s something special about writing a letter to someone you care about. She says there’s “sort of a blessing there, there’s a focus that takes time and means ‘you are worth it, you are special.'”
“The thing they like the best is the simplest thing and that’s friendships and that’s what pen pals do; they create friendships,” says Garibay. She prays the AHG Pen Pal program can be “affirming to girls, that it glorifies God,” and that these new-found friendships can last well into adulthood.
Listen to the full interview below.