CLEVELAND — During the peak of the pandemic, Iris Lai, a biomedical engineering student at Case Western Reserve University, and her friend, Vedha Vaddaraju, a student at the University of Rochester Medical School, started writing letters to frontline workers to thank them for the sacrifices they made to help others.
To make a bigger impact, the women built a website and recruited volunteers to send messages of support to healthcare workers.
From there, Letters of Gold was born.
Good Morning Cleveland anchor Danita Harris spoke with Lai and Vaddaraju about the organization's mission.
“We thought that letters were a really easy way to put our thoughts into one piece of paper and give it to whoever needs the words and to whoever needs the encouragement,” said Lai.
“That's kind of what keeps us going, is to remind people that they aren't alone and that they have someone thinking about them,” said Vaddaraju.
Since April 2020, Letters of Gold has expanded to several countries.
Members of the organization have written and sent more than 3,000 letters to people around the world, including cancer patients, domestic abuse survivors and teachers.
“A lot of times they're really excited, they're like, oh, wow, we really need these letters. We really needed a push of encouragement,” said Lai.
Letters of Gold is looking to expand into high schools across the country, including Ohio.
In October, the organization is working with an all-girls school in Rwanda to send letters and poems to hospital patients.
