What is the best way for an adult to find non-romantic snailmail
penpals outside the united states? What organizations other than the best known
(International Penfriends) provide
non-romantic penpal-matching services?

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Clarification of Question by penletter-ga on 10 Apr 2005 20:58 PDT

I am open to hearing about single-coutry or single-region orgs, as
long as they are not limited to North America (where I reside) or the
Middle East (a source of lots of very iffy "pen pal" groups).

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Clarification of Question by penletter-ga on 15 Apr 2005 23:22 PDT

To further clarify, in light of the comment.
I am looking for an organization/service/whatever that does roughly
similar things to IPF, or for links to organizations that do this on a
local/regional scale.
What IPF does is match people who want to exchange letters for the
purposes of friendship. It allows members to limit their penpals to
people of their own sex, is explicitly not a dating service, and does
not encourage participant members to convert to any particular
religion.

I have seen references to other similar groups, but have not been able
to find detailed information on how to contact them.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 16 Apr 2005 06:26 PDT

This site strikes me as legitimate, and possibly what you're looking for:

http://ppi.searchy.net/


However, it's hard to be sure from a brief overview that their focus
is snailmail rather than e-mail.


Let me know what you think.


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by penletter-ga on 16 Apr 2005 10:46 PDT

The site you mentioned seems to be mostly focused on email. (Though
snailmail is mentioned, it appears that one has to be primarily an
email penpall to participate.)

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Clarification of Question by penletter-ga on 16 Apr 2005 10:54 PDT

If this helps - IPF's materials sometimes mention that they aren't
affiliated with " a penpal organization in Washington State,USA" and
I've heard of penpal orgs which are tied to old peace-and-friendship
groups, of one focused on Japan, of one focused on Vietnam, and of one
that even still has "Soviet" in its name. I haven't found contact info
for any of these.

I know that there are also groups devoted to swapping postcards and
mail art, which may have a penpal aspect...

Well for the fastest results and probably the funnest I would have to
direct you to whatever large churches are in your area.  Almost every
church sponsors missionaries and that can be from singles to large
families.  From my experience all missionaries love to get letters and
write back, I even got a penpal this way.  All you have to do is find
a family you like and pick someone to write to, as long as it is not
romantically inclined you are almost certain to get a response.  From
kids to parents keeping in touch is something missionaries love to do.
 My penpal was a husband and father in Brazil (I was 20 years younger
than him but I had a great time writing and getting letters).