Secular Week of Action Day 4: Write a letter to brighten someone’s day for

For Day 4 of Secular Week of Action, we are making and sending letters to people in isolation. Nursing home residents have been requesting letters, drawings, and pictures and we are answering that call!

Austin Humanists at Work is making and collecting cards for Tech Ridge Oaks Retirement Home.

To join in writing letters for Tech Ridge Oaks, use the guidelines below when writing. Email us at info@austinhumanistatwork.org To coordinate delivery to us, or we can pick them up from you. After we have collected them, we will deliver all of the letters together in one care package.

If you have a local or personally significant nursing home, hospice, assisted living facility, or children’s hospital, we encourage you to write to them as well. You can also create a video here to be shared with nursing home and assisted living residents.

Love for the Elderly is a non-profit that accepts letters and sends them worldwide to people living in nursing homes, hospices, assisted living facilities, and senior centers. They do this all year long and they have helpful guidelines, so we will use those as well. Also, if you may appreciate some guidance to know you are doing the right thing!

Love for the Elderly’ guidelines with a few notes from ATXHAW:

1. Letters must be legible (large print) and handwritten. No worries if you’re not artistic; make your card as what you’d like to receive.

2. Avoid religion. Please refrain from including anything religious in your letters, such as religious quotes, words like “God,” etc.

3. Exclude the date (day, month, and year).

4. Embrace creativity! Recipients love it when the letters are personal. We encourage you to make your letters detailed, thoughtful and heartfelt.

5. Be kind and thoughtful (more than talking about yourself). This is a one-way letter exchange, meaning you will not receive a letter back, so remember that no reciprocation attached is part of the beauty of your act of kindness, and the recipients don’t feel burdened by feeling obligated or being unable to respond.

6. Envelope your letters if you can! It’s so much nicer to open up an enveloped card, don’t you think? If you are giving them to ATXHAW, leave your enveloped letters unsealed and unstamped and put them in a larger envelope or bag for delivery.

7. Share your act of kindness! We love seeing photos of your letter writing, and it helps promote our cause more than you know. Tag us: @atxhaw, #SecularWeekofAction, @love4theelderly

A note on large print:

It is very common for people to develop low vision as we age. For this reason, writing in large print will help older adults be able to read our notes. To make print easier to read, use dark colored writing utensils, write in light colored paper, and if possible use writing utensils like felt tip pens, which provide a bolder font. The below picture shows the difference between a regular pen and a felt tip pen.