Yes! As long as you have an internet connection to claim recipients and a postal service to mail your submissions.

We are a primarily English-speaking organization. We do have other languages and Volunteers that speak and write multiple languages. You may be able to communicate with others in your primary language, but yes, English is preferred.

No, there is no minimum age, although anyone under 16 years of age should get parental permission due to the content provided in recipients’ stories.

• This is strictly go-at-your-own-pace volunteering. No pressure!

• If you want to write a letter every year, thank you so much!

• If you want to write a letter every day, thank you so much! You will probably win a prize.

• Yes, LAD offers a monthly prize for most letters written, a random letter drawn, and hugs.

• One entry is enough to win!

• You may only win once per year in the monthly prizes. Other special categories you may win more than once.

Everyone who sits on the Board has a day job. However, you can email us at any time!

At this time, it is easier to get a hold of Kim at LADInnovationComm@gmail.com

Email is the best way to reach us, social media may take longer. If you have sent a social media message and not heard back, please send an email. We apologize in advance.

The service time depends on the length, content, and included extras of each letter. As a general framework, we track your hours through your letters sent. Once we receive your letters they are reviewed and we assign a time value to them. Simply, if the letter is one page long (one side of one sheet of notebook-length paper), we would typically assign 30 minutes to 1 hour, based on content and personalization. 2 pages would be about an hour or two. Also, we give an extra 30 minute bonus for including extra stuff, like say doodles, color on the paper, or a stamp to mail it with. All in all, the best of the best type letter could be up to 4 hours in service time (typically these are more than 4 pages long)

• Yes! You can absolutely get service hours for creating hugs and sending in holiday and birthday cards.

• You can tabulate these hours yourself and enter them into the Volunteer portal, under the hugs tab. We will confirm once your hugs have arrived.

• Please send Rob an email at Rob@Lettersagainst.org.

• Rob will review your Volunteer Portal and confirm your hours.

• Once these hours have been reviewed, Rob will send out a letter of confirmation on Letters Against Depression letterhead.

• Please be mindful of asking us to confirm your hours. Please do not sign up on a Monday, send a letter on a Tuesday, and expect us to be able to confirm your hours by Friday. There is a good chance we haven’t even gotten your letter yet.

• In general, if you are earning hours for school or community service, be aware of your timeline for submissions and when you will need your confirmation of service by. It can take us up to 10 days to get your submission, sort it, log it, and confirm it depending on where you are located in the United States and longer for international volunteers.

• Please send notice you will need this confirmation before this date so we may collect the information and send it to you.

We are working on updating our portal. The company that hosts the portal made some updates that broke our system. We are working with them to get this sorted. It is an ongoing issue. If you need to see the information, please let Rob know so he can manually push the information through.