Mandatory Good News: Little Girl’s Thank-You Letter to Postal Worker Gets Massive Response From Across the Country

Emerson Weber, an 11-year-old from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, wanted to show her appreciation for her neighborhood postal carrier, Doug. What better way than by writing him a letter?

“I’m Emerson,” she wrote. “You may know me as the person that lives here that writes a lot of letters & decorated the envelopes too. Well, I wanted to thank you for taking my letters and delivering them. You are very important in my life. I make people happy with my letters, but you do too.”

It didn’t take long for her good deed to come back to her. The next day, the fifth-grader received a package from Doug and his supervisor. Soon, her letter was included in an internal U.S. Postal Service newsletter, and mail carriers from all over the country wrote to her expressing gratitude for recognizing their work. Now, she’s busy swapping handwritten missives with all her new pen pals.

“I think what this moment with Emerson has revealed is exactly that, that there’s such a basic human need to be seen and to be known and to be loved. And she’s reflected that,” Weber’s father told MPR News. “We can all take that step of showing gratitude and showing love. And so it’s overwhelming to have the young woman that I know spark that.”

Maybe if we all started penning letters of appreciation, we’d not only spread joy but save the postal service from an untimely death as well.

Cover Photo: myshkovsky (Getty Images)

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