Oregonians urged: Write a letter to a stranger

This holiday season, Oregon Humanities invites Oregonians to participate in the third round of Dear Stranger, a letter-writing project the organization kicked off in April 2014.

Dear Stranger aims to connect Oregonians from all walks of life through the mail. Call it an old-school pen-pal program, a long-distance community-building project, or a new-school commitment to paper in an email age. The premise is simple: Write a letter, get a letter, and make a new connection.

This is the third time Oregon Humanities has solicited Dear Stranger letters in 2014 in conjunction with the publication of Oregon Humanities magazine, with letter prompts related to magazine themes. The fall/winter theme is “Quandary,” and the prompt for letter writers is as follows:

Write about quandaries—a time you’ve experienced a pickle, a bind, or an impasse. A time you faced a seemingly unwinnable challenge.

Writers will send their letters along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope and a signed permission form (available at oregonhumanities.org) to Oregon Humanities. Letters will be swapped with the goal of pairing individuals from different parts of the state. What happens next is up to the writers; the hope is that the project will inspire further correspondence.

Letters should be addressed to Dear Stranger, 813 SW Alder Street, Suite 702, Portland, Oregon, 97205. Oregon Humanities will exchange letters mailed through January 9, 2015. Any letters received after the deadline will be returned to their writers. Further details about the project may be found at oregonhumanities.org.

Oregon Humanities connects Oregonians to ideas that change lives and transform communities. More information about our programs and publications—which include the Conversation Project, Think & Drink, Humanity in Perspective, Idea Lab Summer Institute, Public Program Grants, and Oregon Humanities magazine—can be found at oregonhumanities.org. Oregon Humanities is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a partner of the Oregon Cultural Trust.