[OPLINLIST] Buddy Project

[Mary Ball]

Hello,
I just finished a wonderful book, "All the Lonely People" by Mike Gayle.Hubert Bird, an elderly Jamaican immigrant, is expecting a visit from his daughter, Rose.In his weekly conversations, Hubert regaled Rose with stories about all  of his adventureswith his friends. Rose can't wait to meet them. She is taking a vacation from her job as a professorin Australia and is looking forward to seeing Hubert and his friends.  The trouble is, there are no friends- Hubert made them up.  He's lonely and has to find and make some friendsbefore Rose comes home.
Enter his neighbor, Ashleigh and her young daughter. They slowly develop a trustingrelationship and set about to find friends.  
Now, that you know a part of the story- here is the part I found inspirational.Ashleigh sets about to help the lonely in her small village/neighborhood with the help of Hubert.  The group struggles at first, but soon the idea of helping the lonely catches on. 
I would like to do something like the Loneliness Project in the book that reaches out to thelonely and isolated in our area.  I was thinking of a pen pal project - just to get started.
My question is do any of you do something like this in your library?If so, how did you do it and how did you get it off the ground?
We were brainstorming today and we thought we could bring in young people to write to seniors who are in nursing homes orin apartments - mostly living alone and perhaps a bit lonely-more so because of COVID.
I'm looking for ideas- what worked, what didn't.
Thanks
Mary Kay BallReference LibrarianBarberton Public Library602 West Park AveBarberton, Oh 44203330-745-1194(Ext. 1444 for Voice Mail).

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplinlist/attachments/20211122/edc4f476/attachment.htm>