Schools

Photos: Burton Elementary School Students Party With Senior Pen Pals

A year's worth of correspondence between 22 students and their older friends in Huntington Woods culminated in face-to-face meetings Friday morning.

A class of excited fourth-graders finally got to connect with the senior pen pals with whom they've been exchanging letters during a party Friday morning at the school.

The meeting was the culmination of , with whom they have exchanged letters each month.

"What's neat is that it's intergenerational – just to have the interaction with the seniors is so neat," said Regina Noack as her daughter Mia met with her pen pal. "I almost forgot they were learning to write letters. It's really been about the friendship."

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That sentiment also rang true for the seniors, who were abuzz with anticipation before the party. They met at the to pick up balloons for their pen pals before parading over to the school with presents and cards in hand.

"If you engage them in conversation and talk to them about things in their life, that's what's important – and telling them about what it was like when you were a kid," said pen pal Rick Tripp, whose excitement Friday made him seem more like a kid himself than a senior.

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Tripp, who has participated in the program for more than a dozen years, said sometimes his pen pals are amazed by his experiences. For example, the fact that his family didn't have TV when he was young is a perennial mind-blower, he said.

Tripp's wife Margaret, who was the rec center's senior outreach coordinator for 19 years before her retirement several years ago, started the program in the early 1990s.

"To finally meet the kids, they're just so cute," said Tripp, who was Mia's pen pal. "I get a lump in my throat."

Mia was pleased with the program as well.

"I think it's really, really fun because you get to learn a lot about people," she said.


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