Imagine a time when you were going through a really tough time in your life. You might have lost someone dear to you, found out some tragic news, or you just simply were having a bad day. Now imagine what it would have been like if you were offered some words of encouragement and support from strangers in a form of a handwritten letter. This is the idea behind Founder Hannah Katy’s organization called The World Needs More Love Letters. I had a Q&A with Hannah where I was able to learn the power a simple love letter can have and how one idea can become something entirely more.
HCUCF: How did you come up with the idea for More Love Letters?
HK: The funny thing about More Love Letters is that it came about totally and completely by accident. I never anticipated it would be this big! I lived in NYC last year and learned very quickly that not every young woman moves to the big city and makes all her dreams come true. It can be a rough and lonely place. To cope with my loneliness, I began to write letters to people on the train who looked like they could use a boost. I called them love letters because that is what they were, no mushy romance, I am no Juliet, but I filled those letters with love when I could not find a way to give myself a drop of it. At the time, I did not love myself, and so I learned to love strangers instead. Off of all the encouragement, and the true belief that the world actually does need more love letters, The World Needs More Love Letters was born.
HCUCF: Why do you think it’s important for people to receive these?
HK: Unfortunately, we live in a culture that has confined writing letters to special occasions. And today, we are even lucky if we write it down before sending it out as an eCard. These letters are a reminder that right now, on this absolutely ordinary day, someone might really need a lift. I think too often we think that we write cards for a birthday, or a wedding, or a funeral, but if we do that, then we miss out on the opportunity to sit down and write a love letter right now.
More and more I am finding, as I share stories about the love letters, that people are struck by the tangible letters. We live in a world where emails and texts are how we track our words. These letters are something you can hold, carry in your purse, keep beside your bedside table. These letters can be held. And I think we need that more than we care to admit, a chance to hold something instead of letting it sit on a screen.
HCUCF: How can these letters make a difference?
HK: I am fully aware that these love letters won’t change the world. They won’t completely heal a broken person. But it was an individual who emailed a testimony to me the other day that reminded me of the true beauty behind these letters. She wrote something along the lines of: It is not that the letters fix you, but they remind you that you are not alone, that you won’t be struggling forever. How many of us really, truly need that reminder? The website gives people an opportunity to just say it out loud, “Hey, I am struggling! I need a letter! I just need someone to show me I am not alone.” If the letters can do that, if the letters can show one person that they are not alone, then the letters work.
HCUCF: Can anyone write love letters?
HK: Yes! That is the beauty of the project. Anyone can sign up for the subscriber list (http://www.moreloveletters.com/get-involved/become-a-writer/)Â and receive a monthly letter request in their inbox. And anyone can take to writing and leaving love letters in the places that they live. All they have to do is write MoreLoveLetters.com somewhere on the envelope or letter so that someone can trace the letter back to the site and let us know if they found it!
HCUCF: Can you explain the monthly bundle for my readers?
HK: So, sometimes I get letter requests in my inbox that are especially tough to swallow. It was then, with those requests that I realized that some letter requests need more than one letter. That is why I started the subscriber list and the monthly Love Letter Bundles. Every month we blast out an email to everyone on the list and ask them to write a love letter in the next few days and send it to our PO Box: More Love Letters, PO Box 2061, North Haven CT 06473. Then, after we get all the love letters in through the PO Box, I bundle them up and mail them to the individual!
HCUCF: Would you like the organization to grow? Any plans for the future?
HK: My big goal, each and every day, is to really shake people up with these love letters. To reach the person who said they would never need a love letter or, better yet, to get the person who swore they’d never write a love letter, to sit down and write it for someone else. That’s what I love about the growth of More Love Letters, that every day I get to spread this idea that this whole life really has nothing to do with us, that it only means something when you step outside of your own world and reach to others. If I could take a megaphone to the world with one message to spread to every ear, that would be it, that this project has nothing to do with “you,” but everything to do with somebody else, someone who doesn’t even know yet that they’ll meet you today in that letter. Â
For December, Hannah has organized a special campaign for Christmas called the “12 Days of Love Letter Writing.” From December 5-17, a different individual for each day will be receiving these love letters. When you sign up, you will receive an email on the day you committed to with the love letter request inside. You will then have one week to script a letter and drop it in the mail to More Love Letters, PO Box 2061, North Haven CT 06473. So grab some hot cocoa and some stationary and get writing your first love letter for someone who needs it, you know I will be!