Every other Wednesday, a Lincoln High School classroom is packed with students writing letters during their lunch period. There, high schoolers correspond with their pen pals, who are local memory care or assisted living residents.
These biweekly gatherings are Memory Care Connections meetings, a club founded by Lincoln High School seniors Henry Carpenter and Adrian Schulman. Students are paired with pen pals living in memory care or senior living facilities.
Both Carpenter and Schulman strive for the organization’s work to make residents feel seen and heard to combat isolation. There’s even data showing the service is needed, according to Altarum, a nonprofit dedicated to improving health outcomes for underserved communities.
“A recent meta-analysis on loneliness in care homes found that approximately 61% of older people living in care homes may be moderately lonely, and nearly 35% may be severely lonely,” according to a December 2023 policy brief.
Residents, though, are not the only ones who benefit.
“We want to remove as much isolation as we can from a group of people that oftentimes feel really isolated,” Carpenter said. “For the student, you can form a genuine friendship and connection with your pen pal. We have so many students who started off by writing letters, and then they now go visit their pen pal in person or have a close relationship with their pen pal.”
From one volunteer to hundreds of letters each month
The idea for the club began with Carpenter during his sophomore year, when he volunteered at Emerson House, a Portland memory care facility housing residents with varying stages of Alzheimer’s and dementia. Carpenter spent time with residents doing a range of activities like mini sport games, reading circles, karaoke, puzzles and drawing.
“They really enjoyed hanging out, talking and playing games,” Carpenter said.
Schulman, a friend of Carpenter’s since middle school, soon joined him as a volunteer at Emerson House. Inspired, the two started recruiting their classmates to become volunteers as well.
They quickly pivoted, however.
After having difficulty finding enough people to join them as volunteers, the idea to form a pen pal club was born.
Now, Carpenter and Schulman’s volunteer work consists of delivering or reading the letters aloud to the students’ pen pals on the weekends. Most of the time, they help residents write back, too.
The club took off during Carpenter and Schulman’s junior year.
“Our club at Lincoln expanded, kept getting bigger — we have like 50 students (now),” Carpenter said. “So we actually ran out of residents at the place we volunteered, like there were too many students for how many residents there were.”
This is when they began working with Prestige Living, an assisted living home, and added more people to their letter delivery team.
Seeing the club’s success, Carpenter and Schulman thought it could go beyond their high school.
“There’s so many other places in Portland, and everywhere, that would benefit from this exact program,” Carpenter said. “I think what we realized was there are a ton of kids who are really interested in this and who wanted to do it. It has not been very difficult to get student leaders who are now running their version of the club, just like how we do at Lincoln, at their school.”
Today, there are a total of 15 Memory Care Connections chapters across Oregon, California, Arizona, Utah, Indiana and one in Taiwan. Each facilitates hundreds of pen pal letters each month.
Meeting residents where they are
In Oregon, more than 79,000 people live with Alzheimer’s, according to the Oregon and Southwest Washington Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. In January 2025, a New York University study reported dementia cases are predicted to double by 2060.
An estimated 38.6% of people who live with mild cognitive impairment experience loneliness, and 42.7% living with dementia experience loneliness, a March 2025 study published by The British Journal of Psychiatry found.
“Social isolation and loneliness can have grave consequences for the health and quality of life of older adults living in nursing homes, including increased mortality, suicidal thoughts, and cognitive decline,” according to the Atlarum policy brief.
“They meet the residents where they’re at in this time of life, and having this shows the kids have compassion,” Michelle Grossberg, Emerson House executive director, said.
With guidance and support from Grossberg, student volunteers have been able to do what others can’t.
“They’re showing caring and support,” Grossberg said. “There’s a lot of people out there that struggle with this demographic.”
‘It gets a spark in them’
Grossberg has noticed the lasting impact students leave on the residents and community.
“It really makes them light up,” she said.
Calista Lattel, a senior at Grant High School and leader of Grant’s MCC chapter, experienced the same.
“People always tell me that my visits make their day,” she said. “It’s nice that I get to not only meet all of these new interesting people, but also just give them some sort of connection to our generation.”
After learning about the organization, Lattel was inspired by her grandparents to create a chapter at her school. She observed how living in solitude affected them.
Her favorite part is hearing all the stories residents tell. Lattel hopes to ensure those stories “don’t get lost.”
The time spent with residents is also a highlight of Jackson Devine’s time as a leader of Novato High School’s MCC chapter in California.
“It’s a heartwarming moment,” he said. “Especially when they get really happy, when you bring something up, and it gets a spark in them.”
Devine’s chapter occasionally does more than exchange letters. They have also volunteered at game nights, baked goods with residents and more.
Residents passing on stories and learnings is one of the most integral parts of the club.
“There’s an intergenerational thing that is in play there,” Grossberg said. “Some people don’t have families or don’t have grandkids that can come visit. They’re just exchanging knowledge and sharing their life with each other.”
For Schulman, building community has been most meaningful to him.
“There’s a bunch of laughter and chatter in each club meeting,” he said. “Then we deliver these letters with people who we’ve grown to be closer with at school, and then see how the residents who we volunteer with — how their faces light up and are super excited to hear back from our classmates.”
Continue bridging the gap
Macleay Brundage, a Lincoln High School senior and a director of letter deliveries for Lincoln’s MCC chapter, has seen a lot of the club’s journey.
“It makes me happy that as it’s kept growing, there’s more people getting touched by it.” she said. “I hope that it brightens more people’s days.”
As many in leadership of MCC chapters are seniors, they are preparing to ensure the organization stays in place as they leave high school and begin the next chapter of their lives. Entering the final semester of high school, Carpenter and Schulman are looking for someone to pass the nationwide program onto.
When thinking about college, they floated around a few ideas. They hope to have advisory roles to the team who will take their place and are considering expanding chapters to colleges.
Devine is in a similar position. His goal is to pass his school’s chapter onto his brother, who attends a different school close by.
“I want to keep it going,” Devine said.
Grossberg is grateful that the club was created in the first place.
“I’ve always wanted volunteers, and I love that Henry has got this program going,” Grossberg said. “It’s been wonderful to see them thrive and grow.”
The things students have experienced and gained are what they will carry with them throughout the rest of their lives.
“It has made me realize how important it is to make people feel cared for,” Brundage said. “In the future, that’s one of my goals if I become — well, hopefully I become a doctor — but when I become a doctor making sure that everybody feels cared for and feels like they’re being seen.”
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2025 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 40.
This article appears in February 11, 2026.