"Letters from Home" is an initiative started by Fairfield University's Student Alumni Association in fall 2022. An email was sent to all current first-year parents/guardians inviting them to send a letter to their first-year student in an effort to provide a "bump" of support and encouragement ahead of the end of the semester.
Our current senior SAA members noticed a trend amongst many of our first-year members in fall 2022, that they were missing home, ready for the Thanksgiving break, and stressed about the final stretch of classes/final exams before the end of the semester. They remarked "How great would it be for them to get a letter from home saying how proud their families are of them, how much they can't wait to see them, and to cheer them on in the final few weeks." From there, the idea was born.
Targeted at the first year Class of 2026, the email was sent to all email addresses in our database for that class's parents/guardians. Within the first hour of the email send, over 100 letters were submitted. Everyone from parents/guardians, grandparents, aunts/uncles, brothers/sisters to neighbors, family friends, and even pets - just shy of 900 letters (896) were submitted.
The letters were then printed and sorted in the Office of Alumni Relations and hand-delivered to nearly 700 (669) individual students by members of SAA. The SAA members teamed up by dorm and slid letters underneath the dorm room doors. This was a great way for SAA to meet the students and also bond as a group. Any student who was not home at the time of distribution, was emailed their letters.
The "Letters From Home" program was also a collaborative moment with our Office of Parent Engagement and Philanthropy as they co-signed the email to parents/guardians. This is a great book-end project to their senior recognition program where senior parents are invited to congratulate their graduating Stag.
The project had a zero anticipated budget as it was a new program and was able to be executed with no cost (aside from a ream or two of printer paper). As the primary marketing was an email, there was no printing costs and the delivery was on-campus/personal delivery so there was no incurred postage.
"Letters from Home" was also the recipient of a 2023 Silver CASE Circle of Excellence Award.