Salt Spring Literacy has launched a local edition of The Pandemic Postcard Project.
Initiated by Literacy Alberni, the project fosters community connection and legacy-keeping through storytelling and sharing.
“We’re inviting everyone in our community — as individuals or as families, partners, roommates, work teams, etc. — to share their stories, thoughts, struggles, successes, lessons learned, blessings given or received, and resolutions made during this moment in history . . . on postcards,” SSL states in a press release.
Submissions must fit on a 5X7-inch postcard. They can use text, artwork, photos or a combination of elements. Postcards can be picked up and dropped off at Country Grocer and Apple Photo, or templates can be printed at home and glued onto tagboard or a piece of cereal box.
Suggested ideas for content include:
• A poem or story;
• A photo of your memories – people, places, adventures;
• A recipe;
• Screen captures of meaningful conversations & chats;
• Expressing of thoughts or feelings through art or words;
• A page from a journal;
• Kids could draw the best and worst parts of their experiences in the past weeks;
• Sharing the things that you miss the most, or the things that you don’t.
Some postcards will be shared through social media and some will form part of a display at the Salt Spring Public Library. All postcards will be donated to the Salt Spring Archives for posterity.
A copy of the collection will also be sent to the archives in Port Alberni for their project and some of the cards will be selected for a book to be published by Literacy Alberni.
People should include their first name, age (optional), and island/town of residence. Postcards can be mailed to the address pre-printed on the postcard, dropped in the Pandemic Postcard box at Country Grocer or Apple Photo; or digital/scanned or text-only submissions could be emailed to SSL executive director Stella Weinert at sweinert@saltspringliteracy.org, who can also provide more information, if needed.
“We encourage those with young learners in their family to practise their literacy skills through a hands-on creation,” said Weinert.
Postcards can also be dropped off to teachers for class-project use by contacting Weinert.