SUNDAY PALS

When we started The Sunday Letter Project, we began to receive the same, regular question: ‘can we find a penpal from within the project?’.

After being initially cautious about encouraging our members to exchange home addresses with strangers, we came up with an idea. If we are able to create a network of independent stationery, book and gift shops or cafes who are willing to act as ‘letter holders’, then we could create a penpal network without people needing to exchange personal addresses at all. To our surprise, we were met with overwhelming demand, and the network is now thriving in all corners of the globe.

People can now write ‘shop to shop’, with their letters held safely until collection — a modern twist on the old Poste Restante system.

Each participating shop would acts as a ‘Letter-Keeper’ - , keeping letters safe until they are collected by the intended recipient. You can post a letter to someone through any shop in the network, and they can collect it from their local one.

How it works

• Find your nearest participating shop on our Sunday Pals map. If you can, pop in to see if they have received any intro letters.

• Send your intro letter to any other shop from the network with some information about who you are and what you want to get from joining the project. Remember to include your local shop address on the back of your envelope.

• Wait for a kindred letter pal to read your letter and hopefully reply to your local shop.

• The shop will hold it until you’re able to collect it.

Who can join?

Anyone who’s part of The Sunday Letter Project. Your intro letter will join a ‘pool’ of letters at each participating shop. People visiting the shop will be able to browse the letters and reply to any that they ‘connect’ with.

Are there any rules?

Yes, just a few — enough to keep everyone safe and the experience kind.

• Don’t include personal details like your home address, phone number, or social media handles. All contact stays through the Sunday Pals network.

• Keep your letters kind and respectful. Sunday Pals is about connection, not debate or persuasion.

• No sales, promotions, or self-advertising of any kind.

• Shops can refuse to hold or deliver any letter that feels unsafe or inappropriate.

• If you want to stop writing or take a break, just let your shop know — no awkwardness required.

I can’t find any shops near me!

Our network is totally free to the end user and is just run by just two people, who also run their own stationery shop! We don’t have the resources to actively seek new shops. We therefore operate mostly by allowing shopkeepers to come across us themselves, or via customer referrals.

If you have an independent book, stationery shop or cafe nearby then you may want to request that they consider joining the network. Please note, there is a small fee for shops to join that covers our administrative costs, and it may not be possible for every shop. We encourage you to ask politely, ideally by letting them know about the idea in person and leaving it up to them to decide if their shop is a good fit.