During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, GreenFields of Geneva, a senior living community, launched the Pony Express Pen Pal Program to help their older residents be less isolated.

Sisters Ann and Madeline Barr – now 15 and 18, respectively, and both Geneva High School students – kept writing to Helen Meints, now 91.

Before leaving for a baton competition in Italy in July, the sisters visited Meints in person at GreenFields, located in Blackberry Township near Geneva.

She gave them gifts of journals.

“We still exchange letters every couple of months and get together occasionally,” Meints said a news release. “I write about my family, trips I’m taking and activities here at GreenFields. I always include a joke. They write about school and what they’re doing. Everything I write is in print, since students don’t read cursive anymore.”

Letter-writing had long been part of Meints’s life, as after she graduated from college in 1954, she and a group of close friends began a round-robin pen pal exchange that still continues.

For her, the Pony Express Pen Pal Program rekindled the comfort of written words.

“When I was young, we were isolated because of polio,” Meints said in the release. “During COVID, I felt like I was sharing a little bit of history with Madeline and Ann. I understood how they were feeling.”

During the pandemic, GreenFields’ life enrichment manager, Karen Tomko, searched for creative ways to keep residents engaged while socially distant.

The pen pal program started as a temporary way to ease isolation. But it became a cherished connection and proved that even in uncertain times, new friendships can take root.

Tomko reached out to families in a nearby subdivision, where Ann and Madeline live, using Facebook posts to see if anyone wanted to exchange letters with residents.

Thirty-six families signed up immediately, and 15 more joined soon after.

Tomko carried the handwritten letters Pony Express style – only without the actual pony – delivering notes back and forth between the community and the neighborhood, according to the release.

Interesting that the initial request went out on social media, probably through Wi-Fi and text messages.

But the letters that followed arrived the old-fashioned way, by pen, paper – and heart.

The girls’ mother, Jessica Barr, said it was nice that her daughters have “this extra grandparent in their lives” through their pen pal relationship with Meints.

“It brings joy to them, to Helen and to me as well,” Jessica Barr said in the release. “I love that my daughters have a friendship with someone who has so many interesting stories and such sound advice.”

More information about GreenFields of Geneva is available online at GreenFieldsGeneva.org.