In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, students across Canada are finding connections through online pen pals.
PENdemic, an online pen pal matching project, was founded by six McMaster health and life sciences students.
Dixon Pinto, the fourth-year health science student who came up with the idea, said he found his inspiration in his job as a community advisor — the McMaster equivalent to a Carleton residence fellow.
“One of the big things about university is the social life, and a lot of [my students] felt that they were going to be missing out on a lot of their first-year social life,” Pinto said.
He added social interaction has a great impact on students’ mental health.
“We need to keep in mind that we’re physically distancing, not social distancing. Social distancing can cause feelings of loneliness … getting a chance to ‘touch in’ with someone is really good, especially if it’s someone outside of your family or primary group.”
Interested applicants fill out a Google form on the PENdemic website with their program and school, along with their hobbies, interests, and expectations of how often they would like to communicate with their pen pal. They are then manually matched with another applicant by PENdemic organizers.
“We kind of refuse to do any algorithms, or systems … or computer matching,” said Tiffany Chen, the fourth-year health science student who organizes PENdemic’s outreach programming.
Chen said the manual matching produces more accurate and successful matches, and that the PENdemic team is open to recommendations from participants on how to improve.
If matches don’t quite fit, or if students would like to find another pen pal, they are encouraged to apply again.
The free online matching service has already matched over 400 students with pen pals across the country.
Nadia Maras, a fourth-year Carleton student studying Communication and Media Studies with a minor in French, learned about PENdemic through a friend’s Instagram story.
“I’ve always wanted a pen pal,” she said. “Stereotypically it’s usually pen-to-paper, and I’ve never really had that experience. I think this was kind of the perfect opportunity. It’s super easy because it’s all digital.”
She added that her pen pal had a lot of similar interests, so their connection was almost immediate.
“I thought my match was super accurate,” she said. Maras added that she is open to the possibility of meeting her pen pal in person one day.
Ariana Coleman, a fourth-year Carleton student studying Public Affairs and Policy Management, was matched with a pen pal at the University of Toronto and said their daily check-ins have benefitted her mental health.
“It’s been really cool to have a person reaching out to you. I think it can get to a point [in self- isolation] where you’re really insular, so [PENdemic] kind of makes you connect to other people … and gives you something to look forward to.”
Just under three months into operation, the service is already looking to expand into colleges and long-term care facilities.
“Hopefully we’ll do some inter-generational pen-palling as well,” Pinto said.
The next round of pen pal applications closes May 22.
