August 25, 2022

Meet Madison and Nadia, both Patriots in American Heritage Girls, who joined the Penpal program and started communicating via snail mail in January 2022. Madison lives on the east coast while Nadia lives in the midwest.

These two aren’t the typical teenagers who would normally communicate by text or even email but instead they started writing back and forth via snail mail, getting to know each other a little bit at a time while anticipating the next letter‘s arrival. There is nothing wrong with texting or emailing; however, the old way of communicating seems to be a lost art as the technical world keeps on expanding.. Seeing two teenage girls sticking with the penpal tradition is refreshing..

Nadia has a love for history so she and her mom planned an East Coast History trip for the summer, touring places in Washington DC, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Unbeknownst to the girls, both Madison and Nadia’s moms planned a day for them to meet. They were able to keep it under wraps until the morning of the meeting when Madison’s mom let her know why they were traveling to Virginia to spend the day. As they were heading there, Nadia’s mom realized that they knew a lot about each other but neither had sent the other a picture of themselves so she quickly took a snapshot of Nadia and sent it to Madison’s mom. This was going to be fantastic!

Plans changed just a little bit because a storm was rolling in so they decided to first meet at Watermelon Park where they would go tubing down the Shenandoah River. Nada and her mom arrived, checked in, and hopped on the bus. There were many people going at this time because of the storm, so two buses were needed. They were thinking they’d meet on the bus, but Madison, her mom, and sisters got on the other bus as the one was already filled.

When Nadia and her mom arrived at the drop off spot, her mom suggested that they could just sit in the tubes on the shore waiting until all the others went on the river ahead of them as many were together from one group. She agreed that was a good idea but didn’t know the real reason was to wait for the surprise visit of meeting her Penpal, Madison, for the first time. 

Nadia’s mom knew that she was keeping an eye out for another mom with three girls. After a few minutes, they came toward them as if they were waiting to go on the river as well. Both moms made eye contact to let the other know they spotted each other.

Nadia’s mom started recording as everyone was casually talking. Since there was already a bigger group together ahead of them, it seemed fitting for Nadia to ask if they all wanted to go together on the river and get to know each other. At this point, Nadia was the only one still not knowing that she was talking to her Penpal in person. 

Everyone was dropping hints that Nadia would’ve already known from corresponding back and forth through letter writing, the first being they were from Maryland. Then, they shared each other’s names . Next, they shared that Madison was a twin with her sister Morgan, who is also in AHG. After that they shared they homeschool. Nadia knew all these things about her Penpal but hadn’t made the connection until Nadia’s mom asked what they do for extra curricular activities and they said they are Patriots in American Heritage Girls.

Nadia was blown away saying, “What are the odds?”

Finally Nadia’s mom mentioned Maryland again as they said they had lived there, and Nadia said, “WHERE in Maryland do you live?!”

The last clue they gave was. “Mt. Airy”.

Then a long pause from Nadia until she questioned, “Madison?!” And jumped up out of her tube. Looking at her mom, full of excitement and hugging Madison asked, “Did you plan this?!”

That was the start of a day with fun times together. Afterward they went out for a late lunch. That day they made wonderful memories to keep forever. Our guess is this was the start of a lifelong friendship that all began with “old school” penpals.

If YOU have a penpal story, please share it with us!

Blessings,
Jennifer