Personalized messages of gratitude are being sent to essential frontline workers in Richmond for their dedication during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Student-led organizations EmpowerU and Feeding Our Frontlines are collaborating to send out hand-written letters to essential workers through an initiative called “Letters of Love.”
The two non-profits are encouraging community members to join them in recognizing the “bravery of the frontline workers” and the “resilience of the seniors” in a personal way.
Joey Huang, co-chair of EmpowerU, said the initiative started when they wanted to reach out to individual essential workers rather than frontline workers en masse.
“We thought this initiative would be a neat way to make it more personal and recognizing individual people rather than essential workers as a whole,” said Huang, adding that, as a group, frontline workers have already gotten a lot of appreciation in the community.
Community members can submit a letter and artwork through EmpowerU’s Instagram page.
Submitted letters will be handwritten by members of the organization before being delivered to healthcare workers, Huang explained.
“Handwritten letters make it more personal and (the workers) can keep (the letters) for the long-term rather than something that could be lost digitally,” said Huang.
As part of the initiative, the organization has also posted videos of individual healthcare workers in Richmond.
Joshua Evangelista, co-chair of EmpowerU, said the videos are a way for community members to get to know these heroes better.
“We wanted to create a series of videos of the individual healthcare workers to showcase how everyone is special and how their individual bravery is unique to them,” said Evangelista.
“We’re hoping this initiative can bring the community closer.”
To watch the videos or to submit a letter, visit Instagram.com/empoweru_official/
