Oregon Humanities offers a chance for making connections across physical distances with their Dear Stranger letter exchange project.Â
Since 2014, Oregonians have been invited to write letters to someone they’ve never met and create a shared understanding among people with different backgrounds, experiences and beliefs.Â
Each round of the project asks writers to address a different question or theme. In 2020, more than 250 people participated, with letters coming from 29 states.
The process is simple: write a letter, get a letter and make a new connection. Letters are swapped anonymously and each person receives a letter from the person who received the one they wrote.Â
What happens next is up to the writers. If they’d like to write back, they can do so through Oregon Humanities.
This winter’s prompt for writers about food, asks “How has your relationship with food – what you eat and how you get it – changed over the past year? What is a favorite meal of yours and when is your first memory of that meal?”
Address letters to Dear Stranger, c/o Oregon Humanities, 921 SW Washington St., #150, Portland, OR, 97205, along with a completed release form, by March 1. The release form and additional information can be found at .
