Imagine receiving a postcard, addressed to you, from a complete stranger during a really tough time.
Well now you could receive one or even send one!
The postcard happiness project is a free initiative that enables anyone to send postcards to others who could benefit from a little postal kindness. The page is all about potential happiness.
It’s not meant to make you sad about challenging times. It’s designed to lift your spirits in the knowledge that there’s something small and inexpensive that you can do to lift a stranger’s spirits in a big way somewhere out there.
Tatjana Buisson, the very talented creator started the concept after living in Barcelona for 3 years…
“The distance from friends and family triggered my passion for postcards. I loved walking around the city taking pictures with my little digital camera (pre-instagram). I’d print out the the pictures I’d taken with specific people in mind, stick them on a piece of paper and send them to friends and family as postcards. I also liked to illustrate things I saw that I knew friends would love and I’d send my illustrations as postcards too.”
At the time, a friend of hers was diagnosed as bi-polar and she was going through a very challenging time back in South Africa. Tatjana felt helpless living so far away because she knew that she was feeling alone but in her heart she wasn’t alone. She started sending her regular postcards of things that Tatjana thought might lift her spirits. It wasn’t so much the postcard itself as the reminder that she was thinking of her friend, but more so that she wasn’t alone and that she was important.
“I thought very little of it and years later I moved back to South Africa. It was only when I bumped into my friend’s mother and she explained how much of an impact those postcards had had on her daughter that I understood the power of a postcard.”
I knew that there were hundreds of thousands of postcard-friendly people sending postcards to random strangers via Postcrossing and I saw that there was an untapped potential in the combination of these wonderful postcard-enthusiasts and the hundreds of thousands of people who are going through a rough time… People who just need to be reminded that they’re not alone. That even strangers care about their recovery or their achievement.
This is not for people looking for pen pals, it’s for those of us who are stalwart senders, who just love to send mail anywhere, everywhere, without thought for a response.
On the Postcard Happiness blog, they post names and stories of people of all ages who need some encouragement.
They could be depressed. They could be fighting cancer. They could be bedridden. They could have just suffered an assault.
But they all need some brightness in their day, and you can send it in the form of a postcard.
The same super creative girl who started The Postcard Happiness Project also illustrates the loveliest postcards.
No registration is required, and you can send as many or as few postcards as you’d like. The only cost is the postcard and the stamp. If you love to send mail, and it makes you feel good to make others feel good, go check it out.
“I believe this project has the potential to heal both the postcard senders and the recipients. So many of us want to do something good but we don’t have the time or the resources to get heavily involved in massive initiatives.”
“Here’s a tangible, genuine and powerful initiative that enables us to do good in our own capacity. I underestimated the potential that lies in a little postcard. It has the potential to connect strangers in a beautiful and uncomplicated manner.”
“It has the potential to make someone’s day. And the beauty of a postcard is that it lasts for as long as you want it to. It can be a daily reminder on someone’s wall.”
We think this is one of the most wonderful projects we have ever discovered… as long as the postal system works 🙂
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