Handwritten Note Project

A warm welcome to Heart of Dinner's Handwritten Note Project! We encourage everyone to participate in our note-writing volunteer activity, regardless of their language abilities. It is not necessary to know how to write the language we're requesting. As a note of encouragement, our founders did not know how to write Chinese when they first formed Heart of Dinner, and used Google Translate to convey messages of love and appreciation to our elder recipients. We believe that showing up with our time and efforts is a beautiful way of sharing love and making people feel cherished, like the valued members of society that they are.

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As of Spring 2023, we are currently fully stocked on handwritten notes in all languages of our senior beneficiaries except Traditional Chinese. We would greatly appreciate handwritten notes in Traditional Chinese to pass on to our senior beneficiaries.

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We would be honored if you would like to participate in our Handwritten Note Project. Please consider following these instructions below to contribute positive and uplifting messages that will bring joy to our Elderly beneficiaries. Thank you for your time and effort in making a difference in our communities.

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DOs:

• Please supply your own materials and supplies.

• Please use note cards that are either 3" x 5" or 4" x 6" in size. You can purchase them at a local shop or from our shop here.

• Pen your message in black or dark ink so that it's easy on the eyes for our senior beneficiaries to read with ease.

• Write legibly, clearly, with large characters/letters.

• If you're looking for inspiration for different uplifting messages to write to our senior beneficiaries, scroll to the bottom of our website. There, you can find volunteer-contributed messages in the different languages of our elderly recipients. These are perfect for letting them know that they are valued and appreciated. Feel free to copy each character by hand when writing your notes.

• Add cheerful visual appeal to your message by illustrating and decorating on the same note. Use bright, vivid, and uplifting colors to bring warmth and joy. Colored markers and acrylic pens are great supplies that can help you achieve vivid colors! For examples of notes with decorations, please click here.

• Write in batches of 25 notes and use rubber bands or sheets of paper to batch each set.

• Currently, as of Spring 2023, we have sufficient stock for all languages except Traditional Chinese. However, if you would like to contribute notes in languages other than Traditional Chinese for our elderly recipients, we would be happy to accept and store them for future use! The languages that we would be able to pass on to our senior beneficiaries at this time are: Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Thai, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

• If you do not read or write these languages, please use Apple Translations or Google Translate. TIP: We have recently discovered that Apple Translations is quite accurate! If you have other translation sites that you would recommend, please email your recommended translation site to us by clicking here.​​​​​​​​​​​

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DON'Ts:

1. In order to maintain the personal touch of handwritten notes, we kindly ask that each note is handwritten. Please refrain from using photocopies.

2. We ask that you do not add branding, logos, or taglines to the handwritten notes. These care packages are not for marketing purposes and should only serve one purpose: to bring warmth and joy to our recipients.

3. Lastly, please do not include political messages or affiliation on your handwritten notes. We appreciate your contributions in making a difference in our communities and bringing smiles to the faces of our Elderly beneficiaries. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.

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FINISHED?

Now that you've completed your handwritten notes, please store them neatly into an envelope or small storage bag. Label it indicating the language you wrote in, as well as the number of notes in the batch and your Instagram handle if you have one. This will help us sort through the mail and distribute the batches of notes to the correct operations site, ensuring that our elderly recipients receive notes written in their native language. Dropoff and mailing instructions are listed below. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for volunteering your time to participate in our Handwritten Note Project and help make a difference in our communities.

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