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BY Kyle Melnick from the washington post “Love, Dad” Need a shoulder to cry on? Maybe a gag to get you through the day? The men of the Dad Letter Project are happy to oblige. LIFE WELL LIVED 10 June/July 2026 O n a whim, Rosie Paulik posted on TikTok about her father, who had reached a point in his life where he was “wondering what to do next,” she wrote in the caption. “He loves writing letters more than most people love their kids,” she added, explaining that he has written her a let- ter every day, through “college, camp, adulthood.” “Would you want a letter from my dad?” Paulik asked. “Or know someone who could use a little kindness from a retired professor with a killer signature and a fountain pen?” That was in July 2025, and Paulik expected a few people to respond. Instead, hundreds did. “My dad is so excited,” Paulik said of her father, Buz Ecker, who lives in south- western Ohio with his wife, Betsy Ecker. Buz and other dads Paulik has since recruited to respond to letter requests have spent hours writing to strangers who are looking for a pick-me-up, including many whose fathers have died. Paulik named the volunteer-run group the Dad Letter Project and started the website dadletterproject.com , which describes its mission this way: “Mail That’ll Make You Smile (or Cry, in a Good Way).” “It’s very gratifying to be people’s fathers who don’t have one,” Buz says. “And it’s very gratifying to write a letter to people who have never gotten a let- ter from a father.” An ocean away, Amy Woods was scrolling on her phone last year, trying to take her mind off the four-year anni- versary of her father’s death, when Pau- lik’s TikTok appeared. Woods sent Paulik her address in Chatham, England, and a blurb about her father, though she says she didn’t expect she would get a letter. But a few weeks later, an envelope arrived from abroad. Woods cried when she read the note, written by a stranger almost 4,000 miles away in Michigan. illustration by Ryan Johnson Life Well Lived reader ’ s digest readersdigest.com.au 11