Teddy Bear Mail

"Every Tuesday second graders arrive early to Theodore Roosevelt (TR) Elementary School. They come in with a smile on their face and the excitement of taking on their task at hand. The students help deliver the Teddy Bear Mail, TR’s in-school postal service," writes Nicole Gawel on the Metro Western New York website.

According to the article, "This in-house postal service encourages all students, from pre-kindergarten to grade 2, to write letters to their teachers, administrators, classmates, and peers. Last school year, the TR postal workers delivered almost 2,000 letters and packages. Co-advisors, or postmaster generals, Elizabeth Rehac, a first grade consultant teacher, and Celeste Korzeniewski, a reading teacher, run the club, which is based off of the United States Postal Services’ We Deliver program, which has been discontinued for quite some time."

Gawel goes on to say... "They address their letters to the receiver of the mail and the hallway’s designated bear name, which include Cubby Bear Court, Teddy Bear Terrace, Polar Bear Place, Black Bear Boulevard and Grizzly Bear Trail, to name a few.

"The jobs include postmaster, who collects the mail from the mailboxes; facer, that takes the mail from the postmaster and places the letters in the facer box with the address facing front and the stamp in the upper right hand corner; the nixie clerk or canceller, who receives all improperly addressed and stamped letters from the facer, although almost every letter does get to the appropriate person eventually.

"The canceller who cancels the postage stamps; the sorter, that sorts the mail by address and places them into the appropriate folder to be delivered; and the carrier that delivers the mail. All jobs are thoroughly explained to the participants."

When the children are ready to deliver the mail out of their special postal bags, they don their special hats and deliver to the assigned classrooms. In five years time, since the club’s inception, more than 6,800 letters and packages have been delivered.

For more on this story, click here.