Tulsa Students Send Love Through Paper To French Pen Pals

A local French teacher gave her high school students a special assignment; she told them, in light of the recent Paris attacks, to send love through paper.

Every year, the French classes at the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences get paired up with pen pals in France and exchange letters and packages. Since the attacks, that bond has been stronger than ever.

"What you're going to do today is just send love through paper,” said teacher Rachel Doss to her class.

Three years ago, Doss started a pen pal program with a close friend of hers - a third- and fourth-grade teacher living in France.

And now, Doss' American teenagers write back and forth with the French nine- and ten-year-olds, all the time.

They trade stories about their lives and their families, but the letters they wrote Wednesday were more serious – messages of solidarity and comfort after a national tragedy.

Freshman Carolyn Hacker said, "I wanted to show her how I stand with her. I know France was really here for us during 9/11, and so I know I want to do the same for them."

Doss said her friend's students are scared. They live in a town about two-and-a-half hours from Paris, but Friday's attacks changed their young lives forever.

"One of the pen pal students, he had a cousin who was in the attacks and he was shot in the hand. Luckily, he's going to be fine," Doss said.

It’s a small, but heartfelt gesture from one classroom to another.

Doss said it will take about a week and a half for the letters to arrive to their pen pals in France.