Oregonians urged to write letters to strangers
Oregon Humanities invites Oregonians to write a personal letter to someone they’ve never met as part of Dear Stranger, a letter-exchange project now in its second year.
Dear Stranger aims to engage Oregonians from all walks of life through the mail. The premise is simple: Write a letter, get a letter, and make a new connection. There are three rounds of Dear Stranger each year, one for each issue of Oregon Humanities magazine. The theme for the spring 2015 round is “Fix.”
Why a letter exchange? Part of Oregon Humanities’ mission to connect Oregonians to ideas that change lives and transform communities is bringing people together across differences, beliefs, and backgrounds, both in person, through programs like the Conversation Project and Idea Lab, and over distances, through Oregon Humanities and Dear Stranger.
The spring 2015 prompt for letter writers is as follows:
Write about something you’ve repaired: a circumstance, an injustice, a misunderstanding, yourself. A valiant fix or a failed one.
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 May 8, 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.
