(Photo: Submitted)
Nursing home residents in Saint John will have the opportunity to find a new pen pal to keep them company during COVID-19.
Tiffany Goguen created Pen Pals With Purpose after she saw nursing homes in the United States looking for pen pals for their residents.
“So I thought, hey that’s a great idea, especially with the current situation. A lot of nursing homes in the area could probably benefit from that, I figured why not start something like that here, to make sure that the residents have some company and can kind of talk to people with their similar interests,” she said.
When Goguen saw the U.S. ads and a veteran looking for someone in the army to talk to, she was reminded of her grandmother.
“I lost my grandmother in April 2019 and I found, she was in a smaller nursing home, and it was only a couple other residents but she had nothing in common with them so she spent most of her time secluded in her room because she’d have nothing to talk to them about,” she said.
Goguen said maybe her grandmother would have been a little less lonely if there had been a program like this for her too.
She encourages anyone interested to reach out because all kinds of different interests are important. As long as they have the time to write a letter and respond every couple of weeks.
“The response from the community has been great. The page is growing, people are interested in already writing to somebody, however getting some nursing homes on board currently so I’ve had lots of meetings with local nursing homes, a lot seems interested,” she said.
Goguen said she doesn’t know how much time she’ll have to participate but hopes to have at least one pen pal and she’ll be encouraging her teenagers to participate as well.
