`Pennvelopes' reaches out to West Phila. school children

Snail mail is making a comeback -- with the help of Pennvelopes, a pen pal program run by Penn students. Part of the Pennvelopes program, which started last spring, involves a one-to-one correspondence between Penn students and West Philadelphia elementary school students -- known as the West Philly-Penn Connection. By the end of this week, the organization will have delivered hundreds of letters to 16 different classrooms full of excited children. The Pal -- the West Philly student -- writes the first letter, and the Penn student responds. The Penn students -- known as Penns -- and the Pals write one letter a month. Pennvelopes has gained enormous appeal, with a membership increase from 24 Penns when the program started to 500 today. The other component of Pennvelopes, called West Philly and Beyond, matches up Penn students studying abroad with West Philly elementary school students, introducing the children to exciting new places and exposing them to foreign cultures. College senior and club founder Brooke Resh came up with the idea for Pennvelopes during her 1999 fall semester abroad in Seville, Spain, where she met other college students, including some from the University of Michigan. "A few of the Michigan kids in our program were corresponding with classrooms back in Detroit and Ann Arbor telling them about their experiences abroad," Resh said. "They would, in return, receive packages from the classroom." Resh modeled her idea after Michigan's letter-exchange program, "K-grams." She said that she hopes Pennvelopes will eventually be as much of a campus constant. But there is one difference separating the well-established K-grams and the nascent Pennvelopes: money. Whereas Michigan's group has a budget of $25,000, Pennvelopes is working with only $200 from Civic House. "Money's not really an issue right now," said Resh, who said she has been pleased to see students' creativity sparkle from underneath the sparse budget. In Dubya-like fashion, Pennvelopes strives to "leave no child behind." "It is our policy not to deliver any letters to a class unless every single student will receive one," Resh said. Proof of Pennvelopes popularity: the growing waiting list of wannabe Penns. Shirley Woo, an College junior who got involved after working with Resh in the West Philly Tutoring project, said, "I think it's been pretty impressive what we've done in only one semester."