JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It's not always easy for people born generations apart to find common ground, but every year, volunteers at a Maryland retirement home try to forge those cross-generational friendships through a pen pal program. As part of our Here to Help series on volunteerism, NPR's Lakshmi Singh reports.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Good morning.
LAKSHMI SINGH, BYLINE: These good mornings are months in the making. The residents of Oak Crest Senior Living Community line up to welcome dozens of visitors to their decked-out dining hall in Parkville, Maryland.
KAREN LOVELACE: They got flowers in their hands and...
SINGH: Retirees, such as 74-year-old Karen Lovelace, will finally meet the pen pals who've been an open book in the letters they've been writing for months.
LOVELACE: (Reading) My favorite food is tacos. What is yours? What sport did you play as a kid? I look forward to hearing back from you. Your pen pal, Eli.
SINGH: Lovelace's pen pal, Eli Taylor, is only 9. Like every other kid visiting Oak Crest this day, he's part of a writing program at Kingsville Elementary School.
ELI TAYLOR: Like, the first time I wrote a letter to her, I wanted - I just wanted to be done. And then I just sort of felt like I should not rush. I felt like I should just take my time.
SINGH: And so Taylor kept writing, asking every question under the sun. Then one question - are you married? - caught Lovelace off guard.
LOVELACE: Because it was an emotional trigger for me. I'm a young widow. My husband died at 64 with no illness involved. And so it brings back a lot of memories.
SINGH: Lovelace eventually wrote back, careful to explain how she coped with loss in a way that a child could understand. But somewhere along the way, it dawned on Lovelace it had been a long time since anybody asked her about her.
LOVELACE: It's opened my eyes to some things that I probably was missing - those intimate questions that these kids have thought to ask me.
SINGH: Meaningful conversations can happen over an email or a really long text, but a growing body of research suggests writing by hand, even tracing the letters of the alphabet on a device, can strengthen memory and recall. Kingsville teacher Amy DeNike has seen the impact firsthand.
AMY DENIKE: They want to write more. And then, by the end, I mean, they're producing longer and longer letters.
SINGH: The Annie E. Casey Foundation finds roughly two-thirds of Gen Alphas, the first generation to be born entirely in the 21st century, spend up to four hours every day on social media. But Rose O'Brien isn't that interested.
ROSE O'BRIEN: I feel like everyone on YouTube is just loud and...
(LAUGHTER)
SINGH: The 9-year-old loves math and books and writing letters, just like her 76-year-old pen pal, Diana Lohr. The retired teacher could hardly contain her excitement finding a letter in her mailbox.
DIANA LOHR: It was wonderful. And I would think, oh, I can hear about Rose, and it's like we could talk, even though we hadn't met before.
LOHR: Bingo.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: We have a winner.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Woo.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: Ooh, yeah.
SINGH: After several lively rounds of bingo, it's time for goodbyes.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you, everybody that came.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: Thanks a lot, Alice (ph).
LOVELACE: All right. Nice job. Well done. Bravo.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Well done.
SINGH: Oak Crest's seniors will be paired with a new class of third-graders in the fall. But Lohr and O'Brien, they've decided to keep writing.
ROSE: The second note she wrote me, she gave me a math problem to find out her age.
LOHR: What did I put? Twenty-five plus 25 plus 25 plus...
SINGH: Months of letters sparked a connection, and time together sealed a friendship. Lakshmi Singh, NPR News.
SUMMERS: For more stories about volunteerism in America, visit npr.org/heretohelp.
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