Hello and thank you for your interest in Sincerely Yours Pen Pals! I am so excited that you have decided to explore this remarkable program for your students. I'm Yasmin Smith, founder and President of Sincerely Yours. This organization was founded in 2004 and received its tax-exempt non-profit status from the IRS in 2006, to meet 2 crucial needs that I observed throughout my teaching experience.

After having taught for several years in both the public and private sectors throughout the City of Philadelphia, I noticed an ever-present theme amongst Philadelphia's students. First, my students had very little to no understanding of people different from themselves. Many of them have never been outside of the city of Philadelphia, in fact their neighborhoods. They are exposed only to those similar to them, with comparable mindsets and values to that of their families. Due to their lack of exposure to people of various regions, different ethnic identities, religions, customs and mindsets, they seemed to live in a virtual bubble.

In an effort to increase their understanding, tolerance and wealth of knowledge about the world and people unlike themselves, they need to have some form of communication and exposure to people with differences. They can and will both learn and benefit from those differences. In an effort to bridge the socioeconomic, cultural and educational gaps found amongst our nations and our children, we must uncover means of enabling children to effectively communicate with one another.

My second revelation was that students of ALL GRADES could most certainly benefit from a fun and exciting program that supports their literacy curriculum and language development. At present, many schools across the nation (United States) are working toward achieving standards and mandates put in place by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Legislation to ensure that all students are achieving the goals set forth in each grade. Some states have initiated Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals that schools need to attain annually to get closer to reaching the goals set forth by NCLB. Particularly since this goal has been established for schools within the United States, it is even more important that all work and classroom initiatives support literacy efforts. Building literacy should be a primary goal in all classrooms.

As students seek to learn their native language more effectively, we are now seeing a thrust toward engaging students in learning foreign languages as well. Becoming proficient in one language goes against the very fabric of becoming a global economy. Our children can position themselves to function internationally if they have multiple languages at their disposal. Pen palling with a classroom abroad provides the perfect means to enhance foreign language development as well. Middle and high school students, particularly, could greatly benefit from the pen palling experience where they are forced to communicate with another child whose native tongue is the language in which they are learning!

My challenge was to find a mechanism to meet all of these needs. A classroom based pen pal organization is the perfect means to accomplish these objectives, hence the birth of Sincerely Yours!

Welcome.