Children at St Heliers School and residents at Grace Joel Retirement Village has been pen pals for the past year. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
There's nervous excitement as the children of Room 25 at St Heliers School get ready to visit their pen pals.
A five minute walk brings the kids to the Grace Joel Retirement Village, where their elderly pen pals are just as excited as the children.
"Hello hello hello hello hello, there he is, hello," one resident pointed me to her pen pal.
Teacher Sarah Mill came up with the pen pal programme during Covid, after reading about rest home residents' loneliness.
Each student has a resident to write to. They also visit several times through the year.
"In today's modern age, too many students text or email, and they are losing the art of connection through a proper letter. Text is just a few words, whereas some of their letters are getting to two or three pages long."
During Covid, Sarah Mill started the pen pal programme for her class after reading about the loneliness experienced by retirement home residents. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Miss Mill said it means the kids get to build deeper relationships. And many stayed in touch with the residents as they grew up.
"I think it was important for them to share their lives with the residents, and then the residents would sometimes share things from their childhood that had come back to them as a result of reading what the children were doing, so, really interesting."
After written 10 letters, this is the children's third and last visit of the year.
But 8-year-old Vidhya Jooravan has told her pen pal - 85-year-old Joan Baggott - that it won't be the last letter she sends her.
"I wrote I hope [we're] still pen pals (in the future), more planet stuff, and more exciting things about Christmas."
While visiting their pen pals, children from Room 25 also perform songs for Grace Joel residents Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Vidhya loves the friendship she has made with Joan.
"When we started writing letters, I was so excited to have a pen pal. And then when I started carry on writing letters, it started to build up a pen pal friendship and then it was just amazing. It's so nice, it's like having my granny and grandpa sitting here and talking to me. I feel happy and I feel nice inside."
Joan grew up writing letters. But today, while she much prefers texting, she has enjoyed reading Vidhya's letters and getting to know her.
"I love what she writes about because very often it's straight from school, what the teacher's written on the board, and I learn after all these years. I think, oh, I didn't know that. She's a lovely little girl and she sent me a letter once and it had all the little diamantes all the way around the envelope. So I knew she liked pretty things."
And from then on, Joan made sure she decorated all her letters to Vidhya with cute stickers.
Joan Baggott and Vidhya Jooravan have been pen pals for the last year. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Nine-year-old Oliver Qi tried to read Brian Cutting's November letter, but had to stop nearing the end as he struggled with Brian's cursive handwriting - a common struggle amongst the pen pals due to their age gap.
86-year-old Brian was still proud.
"It's very impressive though to be able to read that writing, I think there is really something special for him."
He helped Oliver finish reading the letter.
"I think it's wonderful that you are learning Mandarin. It's wonderful to know how to speak, read, and write in other languages. You are lucky. Once again, you have been learning interesting things at school. Things like our galaxy. Did you know there are billions of galaxies? Billions of them."
And Brian tried to incorporate some Mandarin phrases he learned.
"So we started off, Dear Oliver, Ni Hao. And we ended it up, Zai Jian."
Oliver Qi and Brian Cutting have been writing to each other for a year. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Oliver corrected Brian's pronunciation of "Zai Jian", the phrase means "See you again".
Without a carefully crafted closing statement, no letter is complete.
And everyone has their own preferences.
Oliver likes: "I look forward to seeing you again."
Vidhya loves "warm regards".
"Because it sounds sweet and sounds like half of 'all the best'."
Mark struggled with the cursive handwriting by 96-year-old Dr. M Mackendrick. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Ngarie Jackson, 85, used "kind regards", but said she would prefer something else.
"Well, I could have put love, but I didn't know whether he'd like that or not."
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