Creating links between young people and isolated seniors

Dear Difteur-ses,

Hector, a passionate violinist, is touring the Île-de-France, Nord and Var regions as part of the "Go & Smile" initiative organized by 1 Lettre 1 Sourire: Tour des Aînés avec un Violon.

During his visits to retirement homes, he shares moments of joy with residents by playing the violin and handing out kind letters. He also explores local sights with the seniors, offering them a veritable musical journey. The tour aims to rekindle memories and break social isolation.

Dear Difteur-ses,

At 1 Lettre 1 Sourire, we promote intergenerational links around the world by combating the isolation of the elderly.

The "Go & Smile" project, led by Augustin and Côme, aims to support vulnerable populations particularly in Turkey and Armenia.

For four months, they traveled to different senior structures to meet isolated elderly people and take part in reconstruction workcamps.

Their aim is to bring comfort, collect testimonials and raise public awareness on their return through a documentary screening.

A big THANK YOU for your support!

Dear Difteur-ses,

1 Lettre 1 Sourire is launching the "Chauffe Marcelle" project, an initiative combining concerts, writing workshops, podcasts and intergenerational exchanges.

Until April 18, 2025, two volunteers, Alexandra and Zélia, have traveled across France to create links between students and senior residents through multiple workshops:

- Intergenerational accordion concerts

- Writing workshops

- Podcast creation

- Children at the heart of the event

A big THANK YOU for your support!

Dear difteurs,

On January 6, I was lucky enough to experience an unforgettable day with 1 Lettre 1 Sourire. On my first day as a civic service worker with the association, I discovered all the magic that can come from a simple letter.

📍 Direction Orléans, where our mission was to create a unique link between two SEGPA classes and the residents of the Ambroise Croizat home. It wasn't just a meeting, it was a real alchemy between two very different worlds: curious pupils full of life on one side, and elders brimming with wisdom and stories to tell on the other.

It all started with letters. 💌

These scraps of paper, filled with sweet words, questions and confidences, truly connected the two generations that everything usually separates. What's more, an amazing game took place, as residents had to guess which young person was hiding behind each letter, thanks to clues hidden in the texts. Between the laughter, the knowing glances and the hugs, the atmosphere was incredible.

This moment showed just how much more a letter can be than a collection of words, it can become a bridge, a footbridge between generations who, at first glance, have nothing in common, but who, deep down, share the same humanity. ✨

As I left, I had only one thought: why not recreate this alchemy again and again?

Dear difteurs,

We had the immense privilege of being contacted by Zaho de Sagazan to run letter-writing stands before the start of her concerts as part of her Zenith tour.

Tonight, she was in Brest... 📍

The crowd flocked to enter the Brest Arena. There are regulars who follow her on tour, the curious, children excited at the idea of attending their first concert... The watchword tonight is joy!

Once there, we set up our stand and don our yellow down jackets.

Some know our association, others are just discovering it. 🌟 What a joy to allow everyone who wants to to write a letter! The little ones are so cute: "Look Mommy, I'm going to write a letter to Grandma! ", "How do you spell Zaot?"....

Then it's time for the long-awaited concert. The sound and light show is incredible. After the concert, a few more letters are brought in. It's time to head home in the...well...Brest rain! It has a special flavor when you receive it with the joy of having participated in the rejoicing of lonely people.

We then took the letters to an old people's home in Plouzané next door to us. As we distribute the letters, we think of the faces of those who wrote them.

We came in all simplicity and we leave happy...with smiles on our faces! ✨

Ambroyse, volunteer for an evening

Dear difteurs,

During this summer and during the month of December, I had the chance to drive elderly people with our three-wheelers.

This was a deeply enriching experience, both on a human and emotional level. These moments of sharing offered me much more than a simple trip: they were an opportunity to break isolation, bring a little joy, and enable these people to reconnect with the outside world. ☀️

The rides, often accompanied by smiles and conversation, revealedtouching life stories, memories of a bygone era.The seniors were able to rediscover familiar places and recall memories of youth.

Beyond the practical aspect, these scooter rides reinforced the idea that every gesture, no matter how simple, can have a significant impact. The bright looks and smiles on the faces of the participants testify to the importance of these initiatives. It was a real privilege to contribute to this happiness and to participate, in my own way, in improving their daily well-being.✨

Alexandre, Civic Service at 1 Lettre 1 Sourire

Dear donors,

This year, the magic of Christmas has once again been at the heart of our mission, thanks to a wonderful partnership with Santa's Secretariat.

We joined forces to bring warmth and comfort to isolated elderly people, through thousands of letters filled with kindness and tenderness. ✨

This partnership was a true illustration of the spirit of Christmas: a surge of solidarity, sharing and humanity!

By encouraging children to write caring messages for seniors via the pere-noel.laposte.fr platform, this project created unique intergenerational links. Thanks to these precious letters, distributed in retirement homes by 1 Lettre 1 Sourire, we have been able to brighten the holidays for many residents and offer them moments of joy and connection💌

While this partnership comes to an end with the end of the holidays, it remains engraved in our hearts. These actions reinforce our belief thata letter can change a day, a word can bring comfort, and a smile can transform a moment.

The year 2025 will be an opportunity to continue this great momentum. We have new projects to extend this momentum of solidarity throughout the year, and we hope to be able to count on your support to write, again and again, beautiful human stories!

Thank you to Santa's Secretariat and to you, our community, for your trust and commitment. 🌟

The 1 Letter 1 Smile team

🧡 En Baskets avec Paulette! 🧡
For the second year, we had the pleasure of taking part in the marche/course intergénérationnelle organized by @paris_en_compagnie this Sunday, October 6, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.
The watchwords were: smile and solidarity ☀️
Despite a few raindrops, we had a great time as a pair ☂️
A total of 30 letters were written, and they will be offered to seniors accompanied by @paris_en_compagnie 💌
We have, like last year, won our place on the podium thanks to our "Running Gag" pair (well done Claire and Barnabé, @hec_paris students as part of their civic commitment) in the running category 👏
Congratulations to all participants! 💪
Special mention to our volunteers Evelyne, Ahmed and Angie, as well as Aubin and Basile, also committed HEC students.
Thank you very much, and see you next year, maybe with the scooters.... 🚲 

From August 21 to 25, the association 1 Lettre 1 Sourire took up residence at the heart of the festival Rock en Seine, in Paris. Set up in the "ACT" area dedicated to citizen and solidarity initiatives, far from the hustle and bustle of the music stages, our team set up a warm stand in the association's colors, attracting curious festival-goers eager to get involved.
Our objectives were simple: to raise awareness among festival-goers of the isolation of our elders, and invite them to write caring letters to isolated seniors. Away from the noise of the concert stages, festival-goers were able to take a moment to relax, and share a little of themselves through pretty yellow letters.
In a festive, musical and supportive atmosphere, our stand met with notable success, as 888 letters as well as a few financial donations were collected!!! Our presence at the festival also brought us a great deal of visibility, attracting many festival-goers to get involved as volunteers and ambassadors and thus join our beautiful human and solidarity adventure. We also had the opportunity to take part in the CareNews podcast "Ceux qui font", a great opportunity for us to present our association, explain how it works and share the values of solidarity and benevolence that guide it. 
With new letters in our pockets and a growing community, our adventure continues, carried by all the participating writers and a community always on hand :)

This Thursday, April 4, Lucie Reyx embarks on a bicycle tour of France and Belgium to meet our senior citizens. In civic service with 1 Lettre 1 Sourire since last October, she will carry our colors until the end of July accompanied by her bicycle. She will thus become our official representative, a roving letter carrier, promoting the epistolary link with our elderly and distributing letters in all the structures she passes through.
At each of her stops, she'll be organizing letter-writing workshops for schoolchildren in the morning, distributing kindly letters in the afternoon, and then exchanging ideas with seniors at intergenerational dinners and evenings in the evenings at the structures for the elderly that will be hosting her for the night.
Her Tour de France means  101 stages across France and Belgium, around 4,000 kilometers of cycling covered in 4 months, along which she will meet around 3,000 schoolchildren and 6,000 seniors.
The aim through this project is to combat social isolation via two main levers. Firstly, by creating intergenerational links: Lucie will indeed share convivial moments around workshops linked to the letter, inviting schoolchildren and seniors to take part together. Her aim is to create links between senior citizens' facilities and local schools, setting up twinning arrangements along the way. Secondly, Lucie will be sharing her journey throughout the four months, promoting the idea of maintaining intergenerational links with everyone she meets. If you'd like to keep up with her, feel free to follow her instagram account: @a.bicyclette_ !  

We teamed up with the Paris airports to have letters written to travelers passing through Roissy CDG and Orly airports.
Thousands of letters were written during the month of December. Travelers from all over the world offered us letters written in every language.
For 1 Lettre 1 Sourire, the festive season was the busiest time of the year for remedying the isolation of the elderly. Greeting cards, letters, gifts... we tried to put everything in place to bring maximum happiness and smiles. 

1 Lettre 1 Sourire visited an engineering school in Lille, ICAM, from November 13 to 17, to run an intergenerational week. 
During the week, senior citizens were invited to come and follow the students' classes and take part in activities devised for the occasion. From fanfare and bingo to guided tours and gourmet coffees, the seniors came together to share a convivial and festive moment.
We welcomed no less than twenty seniors, all of whom came with enthusiasm and were greeted with smiles.
It was a complete immersion for our seniors and a real moment of pleasure to see them so delighted at the idea of going back to school for a few hours.

1 Lettre 1 Sourire was present on Saturday, October 28 at the Dictée pour tous at the Forum des Halles in Paris.
All the association members present, volunteers, writers and Miss Ile-de-France got out their best pens for the dictation as well as to write their beautiful letters.
A total of around forty letters were collected during the day.
These letters will soon be distributed in establishments welcoming the elderly. 

1Lettre1Sourire is pleased to announce that the association is once again working on a multitude of projects. We continue to travel throughout France. We've had the pleasure of setting up several writing workshops in various structures for the elderly, as well as at forums: Le Vésinet, Captain Cause, the EHPAD Jean Ferdinand de St Jean, etc... 
Recently our team had the pleasure of taking part in "En baskets avec Paulette" and manned a stand under the tent of Malakoff Humanis, our partner. 
We collected many valuable letters, to accompany our isolated seniors who rely so much on our involvement.

1 Lettre 1 Sourire is still going strong, and since last time, here's our news:
-Dozens of new ambassadors and volunteers have signed up alongside us 🫂
-Hundreds of workshops have been held all over France, and especially in our partner regions: Nord, Calvados, Eure, Orne, Yvelines, Ille-et-Vilaine, Gironde, Rhône and Essonne ✍🏻
-The thousands of letters were sent to us aimed at the elderly 💌
-Thebillions of smiles were created! 😄
We'll leave you with some photos of the beautiful actions carried out over the last two months. 
Thank you all for the support, the fight against isolation of the elderly continues ✊🏼 

Last week, 1 Lettre 1 Sourire teams invited themselves to the SPI Dauphine challenge!
The 42nd edition of the student regatta took place in Menton, in the south of France.
We held a friendly stand for a week, where many students stopped by to write letters and discuss our missions.
We leave with a hundred caring letters to be distributed to elderly people in EHPAD and at home in the Nord department, as well as dozens of young people motivated to get involved alongside us!" 
Thank you to SPI Dauphine for this great invitation, as well as to our patrons for these opportunities. 
Together, let's keep writing letters!  

Our association 1 Lettre 1 Sourire intervened from April 3 to 7 in the Calvados region to offer intergenerational actions aimed at breaking the isolation of the elderly. 

On markets, in schools, within EHPAD and résidences séniors and even directly at home, our civic services aimed to spread the word about our mission and draw smiles on faces thanks to letters written by young people aged 13 to 30.
Writing letters in the morning and distributing them in the afternoon: a short circuit of the letter that creates smiles and brings happiness to children and the elderly alike, all day long.
It also means feeling the importance of our mission from 8am until we fall asleep!
A week under the sign ofencounters, exchange, and above all benevolence.
All these great actions have been possible thanks to all of you: writers, partners, donors, volunteers, ambassadors...
So once again: THANK YOU💛

A big thank you to all of you for your support.
In this month of March, 1 Lettre 1 Sourire celebrates its 3rd anniversary... !
 
In 3 years we've:
- sent 1 million letters to our 1600 partner residences for seniors and at home;
- organized 120 intergenerational workshops in schools, universities, companies and seniors' residences all over France and in neighboring countries;
- gathered hundreds of ambassadors and committed volunteers;
- created millions of smiles thanks to your support! 
Together, let's continue Operation Smile, you write!" 
Continue to support 1 Letter 1 Smile, we need you!" 
You can contact us at the following e-mail address: [email protected]