UPPER SAUCON TWP., Pa. — Fourth-grader Natalie Storace's handwritten letter mentioned her guinea pigs and her siblings, Lola and Poppy.
"They’re cozy, and they sit with you forever.”
She hopes her letter finds someone who needs a smile.
Her classmate, Jake Mehelic, 9, was hoping to pen a letter to a veteran — perhaps someone like his grandfather, who served 36 years in the U.S. Army.
On Friday, inside the library at Joseph P. Liberati Intermediate School, the hum of keyboards and classroom iPads was replaced by something far quieter — and rarer.
Last week, every fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grader — 780 students in total — at the school participated in a school-wide letter-writing initiative led by Dearist, a nationwide childhood literacy program created by Georgia-based author Jennifer Yang.
Over the five days, students like Natalie and Jake learned how to write, address, and mail personal letters — many of which will be sent to nursing home residents and others at local nonprofit agencies who could use a little holiday cheer.
“I think it’ll make them feel good,” Jake said. “It’s Christmas time, and maybe they want to hear from someone. Maybe they’ll write back.”
Jake and Natalie are also students in the school’s Spanish immersion program and were asked to write some letters in Español — a surprise that Yang said adds “a little extra joy” for whoever finds it in their mailbox.
It’s a project rooted in Yang's childhood nostalgia, but with an eye toward what today’s children may be losing in the digital age.
“Dearist was born from the simple truth that a handwritten letter has a magic that texts and emails just don’t have,” Yang said.
“During the pandemic, I found a box of letters from my childhood, and holding them felt like time travel. I immediately wondered — will kids today ever get to experience that?”
A lost letter and even bigger idea
Yang’s inspiration came from a stack of elementary school pen pal notes she stumbled on at her parents’ house in 2021.
Inside the box was one letter she recognized instantly as her own — an unsent note to a friend who moved away when she was in third grade. The letter was never sent because her parents had run out of stamps.
“So I put stamps in every Dearist kit,” Yang said.
“No student should have a letter they can’t send.”
Each Dearist kit includes stationery, activity books, writing prompts, and stamps — everything a child needs to write a letter from start to finish.
While the products are available at retail for $39.99, Yang said the program thrives better in schools where kids write in a shared setting.
“This school has been our biggest project yet,” Yang said.
“Watching 780 kids get excited to write letters … it feels like the art form is waking up again.”
A pen pal story that changed two lives
Dearist arrived at Liberati Intermediate School, thanks to Caitlin Alifirenka, a parent of a fifth-grade student at the school and co-author of the New York Times bestselling memoir "I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives."
The book is about her own pen pal exchange with a Zimbabwean student named Martin Ganda, which helped him move to the U.S. and earn a scholarship to Villanova University.
“Martin and I grew up together through letters,” Alifirenka said.
“He would tell me how the dirt felt beneath his feet. I’d tell him how soft our grass was."
"We shared drawings, stories, teenage drama, and our love for the Spice Girls, whom he called the Spicy Girls."
Their letters traveled 10,000 miles between Hatfield and Zimbabwe.
Today, Ganda resides in New York City and runs a foundation supporting students in under-resourced communities — the same kind of student he once was.
“One small letter changed both of our lives,” Alifirenka said. “That’s why I believe so strongly in what Dearist is doing.”
Ganda and Yang are both alumni of Duke University's graduate school, which is how Alifrenka and Yang met, through, yes, sending letters to one another.
A librarian with a vision
The initiative took root when Alifirenka approached school librarian Carli Rasich, who had hoped to bring creative writing back into students’ daily routines.
She admitted she went into the letter project with some doubts.
“As a computer-based school, every kid has a device and most of our assignments happen on a screen,” Rasich said.
So, in all honesty, I was a little nervous —apprehensive, even —that they wouldn’t have the writing stamina to get through a whole letter.”
“They took to writing a letter immediately. Their thoughts were flowing; they knew exactly what they wanted to say.”Carli Rasich, Joseph P. Liberati Intermediate School
She wondered whether her students would struggle to generate ideas without the comfort of spell-check and other digital-savvy tools.
“I wasn’t sure they were going to have the thoughts they wanted to put on paper, or that those ideas would come to them easily,” she said.
What happened instead surprised Rasich and the faculty at the middle school.
“They have blown us away,” she said.
“They took to writing a letter immediately. Their thoughts were flowing; they knew exactly what they wanted to say.
"They really haven’t needed any help in knowing what to write about or how to get their thoughts onto the paper and have done so incredibly well.”
Learning connection, not just composition
While the Dearist program centers on human connection, Yang said the academic benefits are just as important.
“Letter writing strengthens critical thinking. Kids have to choose their words, organize their ideas, and express themselves without autocomplete doing it for them.”Jennifer Yang, founder of Dearest
“Handwriting builds fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination,” she said.
“Letter writing strengthens critical thinking. Kids have to choose their words, organize their ideas, and express themselves without autocomplete doing it for them.”
Those skills are increasingly at risk, she said, as schools nationwide have shifted toward digital assignments since the adoption of Common Core in the early 2010s.
“When kids do everything on screens, they lose the repetition needed for handwriting proficiency,” Yang said.
“Letters bring that back — and it’s fun.
By week’s end, hundreds of envelopes will be leaving Liberati Intermediate School, traveling to residents in the Lehigh Valley who may not expect a letter — but likely won’t forget it.
“You never know where a letter will take you,” Alifirenka said. “Mine took me to a lifelong friend — and eventually a book that reached millions.”
For Yang, she hopes kids rediscover the timeless charm of ink and paper.
“If even one child opens a letter years from now and feels that same time-travel magic I felt,” she said, “this whole program will have been worth it.”
To learn more about the Dearist program, visit thewebsite.
