Four Graftons come together with pen pal program

Grafton Teen Services Librarian Lauren Duranso was trying to think of events for the library’s younger patrons when she realized her generation was a “cut off” for receiving and sending letters.

Duranso said she has fond memories of writing Christmas letters with her mother as a child — a tradition she keeps going every year.

But, she said, many children and teenagers never had that opportunity.

So she created, with a Grafton, Mass. librarian, the Grafton-to-Grafton Pen Pal Program to connect local patrons with letter writers from communities across the country.

Wisconsin writers will have their letters sent to communities with the same name in Massachusetts, Ohio and West Virginia.

Participants in the program range from 8 years old to 85. Duranso said they’ve had many older people excited to write letters again, and younger people excited to do it for the first time.

“Parents are especially excited to have their kids do it,” she said.

The writers will be matched by their interests and ages.

“When we are doing the matches, we can see the different interests and the regional things, which are interesting,” Adult Reference Librarian Karl Suechting said. For example, he noticed several people in West Virginia put the Bible as their favorite book.

A few people put down that they wanted to be matched with people from a particular state because they had ancestors from there.

“It’s sentimental for them,” Duranso said.

Duranso said letter writing is a valuable tool, as it forces people to slow down and put together their thoughts on a few pages, then read and take in another person’s perspective.

It’s different than the immediate back and forth of texting or online messaging, she said.

“Everything is so instantaneous now,” she said. “Letter writing forces people to slow down.”

Duranso said she collected small pieces of art from different community artists to send with the letters.

The Grafton library has worked with the Massachusetts library before, Suechting said. They are similar sized communities.

“They have a cute historical town, and I suppose we have one too,” he said.

Often, patrons will confuse the two libraries, which are both often at the top of search results for “Grafton library.”
“We have people calling trying to join programs, and it can go on for a while before we realize they’re calling the wrong place,” he said.

The program has about 140 participants signed up so far, 40 of whom are from Grafton, Wis.

The deadline for registration is the end of December. The letters are to be sent on Saturdays, Jan. 11, Jan. 25, Feb. 8, Feb. 22, March 8 and March 22.