Connecting the Community Anonymously
Sense of Place, a program of Mt. Adams Institute, invites Gorge locals of all ages, both English and Spanish speaking, to share some of their unique life experiences. The program is connecting people from all over the Columbia Gorge with Dear Neighbor, a letter-exchange project that invites those living in the Gorge to write a letter to someone they’ve never met.
The aim of Dear Neighbor is to create a shared understanding within the Gorge community of “neighbors” with different backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs. The premise is simple: write a letter, get a letter, and make a new connection.
Sense of Place is a program of Mt. Adams Institute, which provides programs that strengthen the connection between people and the natural world through education, service, career development, and research.
This year’s suggested prompts for letter writers include:
Write about the place where you live or a community where you feel at home. What makes it unique or unusual? Is there anything about your place or your community that you feel is misunderstood by people outside of it?
As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, different communities, elected leaders, and institutions have responded differently. What have you learned from the response to the virus? Has your understanding of the values your community holds or the systems that support it changed?
Whether you’re a 3rd generation orchardist, a member of the Yakama Nation, or a recent addition – we all have stories about how we’ve ended up living here in the Gorge. What’s yours?
Imagine that tomorrow morning, you woke up and read the news that the pandemic was over! Life everywhere could safely return to normal. Tell us about what that first day might look like for you. What would you want to do? Where might you go? Who might you see? What are you most looking forward to in the post-pandemic future?
Introduce us to someone who has made a positive difference in your life. A teacher, a spouse, a neighbor…how did you and this person cross paths? Did you have any assumptions about this person prior to meeting them? Did anything change once you got to know them? What did they do that made your life a little better?
Letters from you neighbor
“Dear Neighbor, it feels nice to make contact with a ‘stranger’ again. It is those simple things that I miss in this time…meeting new people, forging acquaintances into friendships, close eye contact, high fives…on a positive note, our family just welcomed in a baby girl….she arrived on September 19th - she was literally a rainbow after that horrendous week of dense smoke…I do hope you find your own magic in the season, whatever it may be. This winter I seek to tend to the simple things to keep me sane like cooking extravagant recipes, doing crafts, writing more, snuggling with anyone I can, dancing in my living room, and just remember to just feel like a human as much as physically possible. May you find some peace of mind during this time as well. Thanks for being a good neighbor.” - from a neighbor in White Salmon
“Dear Neighbor, I like to kind of connect to a stranger. To someone I’ve never met before, I love to get letters too. Things you should know about me: I am 8 years old. I have a little sister. I like math…I can’t wait to have an excuse to write letters it's just amazing!!! Have a nice day, Sincerely, your neighbor” - from an 8-year old neighbor in Hood River
Want to get involved?
Letters can be as short or long as a writer likes and can take any form that will fit in a first-class envelope. Participants should send their letters to Mt. Adams Institute along with a signed online permission form (available at mtadamsinstitute.org/dear-neighbor). Letters are swapped anonymously, and each person receives a letter from the person who received the one they wrote. What happens next is up to the writers. If they’d like to write back, they can do so through Sense of Place.
Letters should be addressed to Dear Neighbor c/o Sense of Place, Mt. Adams Institute 2453 Highway 141, Trout Lake, WA 98650. Sense of Place will exchange letters mailed through April 30, 2021.
Questions about Dear Neighbor should be directed to Sarah Fox at sop@mtadamsinstitute.org. Further details about the project can be found at mtadamsinstitute.org/dear-neighbor.
