French care home flooded with postcards after social media appeal

The 70 residents of a care home in eastern France have received almost 20,000 letters, postcards and packages after a social media post appealing for holiday missives went viral. 

“I’m stunned – I never thought we would receive so many,” said Rosine Deviviers, a 98-year-old resident of Les Jardins des Cuvières in Thaon-les-Vosges (Vosges).

“It’s often said that people today are selfish, but this has helped me realise there are still lots of kind people in this world.” 

“Every day, residents ask to read more postcards,” said Séverine Vauthier, 49, the care assistant who came up with the concept. “To me, it’s proof we don’t live in a world where it’s every man for himself.” 

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You've got mail

The idea came to Mrs Vauthier during an organised activity with residents in which they were discussing past holidays. 

“They told me it used to be mandatory to send a postcard whenever you went on holiday and we noticed that today this is no longer the case.

“So we made a social media post, like sending out a hopeful ‘message in a bottle’. The residents worked together to write it,” she said.

In it, they asked for postcards from people about their travels, as they were no longer able to holiday themselves. They posted it online on July 31 and received their first two postcards on August 2. 

Since then, the response has snowballed. At the time of the interview, the residents had received 19,962 postcards, letters and packages. 

“It has been heartwarming. We’ve had postcards from people on holiday, from people who can’t leave their houses, from people in other care homes,” said Mrs Deviviers. 

Global response

It is not yet slowing down either: “I saw the postwoman yesterday and she had a little packet of postcards with her. On Saturday, she had a very big packet of postcards with her,” she added. 

The most they have received so far was 2,477 letters in one day on August 12. 

“All the postcards are so touching and so lovely to read. They have come from all over the world: the US, Germany, Slovenia, Poland…” said Mrs Vauthier.

“I think we got lucky by sending out our request at the right time, when lots of people were on holiday. Since it was a request directly from the residents, maybe people were touched.” 

Some people have sent in several postcards and have promised to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. 

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Future penpals

Other care homes have contacted Les jardins des Cuvières to set up partnerships for their respective residents to become penpals. 

And an artist from La Réunion wants to put his paintings onto postcards and send each individual resident and employee their own. 

Some people have also chosen to send packages filled with local products, keychains, teas, sand and shells from their holiday destinations. 

“We received a few written in English, which we showed to one of our residents who speaks some English. She translated them for us,” said Mrs Vauthier.

“I would have been thrilled if we had received between 50 and 100. The only shame is that we wanted to answer each individual postcard but that’s simply not possible anymore,” she added.

“We are trying to think of a way to give an adequate group answer to thank everyone, maybe through a video.”