In this world of instant communications with Twitter, text, and emails, there are still those people who enjoy and want to share the charm and tradition of handwriting a card or letter.
The U.S. Postal Service designated April National Card and Letter Writing Month in 2001. In recognition, the Lewis and Clark Library is hosting an event on the last day of this month for would be letter writers.
Judy Hudgins, an employee at the Lewis and Clark Library, is a devoted letter writer. She’ll lead a free informal gathering at the library on Sunday, April 30, 2017.
For Hudgins, letter writing is away to stay connected with friends and family she doesn’t get to see.
“I have a very good friend who’s 2400 miles away in North Carolina,” said Hudgins. “We don’t get to see each other but a letter once a month lets us stay in touch and feel part of each other’s lives.”
There will be free goodie bags with stationery, pens and stickers to encourage folks to stay connected. 
Hudgins will share resources like U where someone can sign-up to send a card to anywhere in the U.S. and the world. And you can receive a card from anywhere, as well.
She will also talk about round-robin letters. That’s where someone will start a letter and each recipient will add a letter as its sent to the next person on the mailing list. She said it’s used by her grandmother and all the siblings spread across the South.
“That’s how they all kept in touch with some of their day-to-day lives for, I guess, it probably went on for 15 to 20 years,” Hudgins said.
The Lewis and Clark Library hosted a similar event April 2, 2017, to kick off letter writing month. Hudgins said feedback from that event has been really positive.
“I had someone who was an older person, like myself, who had kind of forgotten that letter writing is still a thing that you can do and still very popular," said Hudgins. “She actually went on vacation and sent me a postcard from her vacation to thank me for reminding her to send postcards when she went on trips.”
The event at the Lewis and Clark Library is Sunday, April 30, 2017, from 1:00 p.m. -3:00 p.m. in the large meeting room.
