As part of their Thinking of You Week activity for 2022 card publisher UKGreetings has joined with Royal Mail to donate a bumper batch of products to aid a Wetherby charity’s loneliness busting postal scheme.
Wetherby in Support of the Elderly (WiSE) has received more than 500 cards from UK Greetings after a Royal Mail employee read about the charity’s popular ‘Send a Smile’ initiative. The scheme aims to cut feelings of isolation and loneliness by asking people to spare 10 minutes to send an older person some handwritten post.
Royal Mail Consumer Network Manager Janette Clark, who facilitated the donation, said: “I live in Wetherby, read about the Send a Smile Scheme online and felt it sounded like an incredibly thoughtful scheme. I am acutely aware of the loneliness older people can experience, having seen the change in my own dad since he’s been on his own.
“Through my role at Royal Mail, I met with UK Greetings and the Greeting Card Association (GCA). When I drew attention to WiSE’s project I was really grateful when the business agreed to back it. The scheme has a lot in common with GCA’s ‘Thinking of You Week’, which is held annually in September.”
Melody Mills, Send a Smile Scheme coordinator, said: “We’re so grateful for this wonderful donation which will mean so much to isolated older people across Wetherby and its surrounding villages. Although we encourage individuals to submit handmade post under the scheme, donations from businesses like this give us a massive boost and mean we can really extend its reach.”
News of the donation was picked up by the Yorkshire Evening News – which featured the story on their front page on 13th July 2022!
To get involved in the WiSE scheme, make a card, draw a picture or write a letter and send it to the charity at: Send a Smile Scheme, Wetherby in Support of the Elderly, The One Stop Centre, Westgate, Wetherby, LS22 6NL. The charity will then forward the post an isolated older person.
If you have a local charity you’re working with for Thinking of You Week please contact us and we’ll share your story as part of our 2022 Consumer media campaign to highlight the benefits of sending and receiving a card.
