The Daily Populous Sunday December 14th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by cbsnews.com and submitted by AdSpecialist6598

It's the time of year when we send or get the most fun mail. What is it about getting something in the mail?

Sara Algoe, a professor at the University of North Carolina, researches social interactions.

"As humans, we want to feel valued and loved and respected, and a letter signals that," Algoe said.

Now, a story that proves the gratification comes on both ends of the letter's journey.

Lou Ann Restad, Nancy Knoell, Karen Droegemueller and Elizabeth or "Betsy" Murnan are all retired teachers, ranging in age from 76 to 95. They may not be teaching, but they are still working, writing letters for Make it Better. It was an idea Murnan got from a family member, Anne Graham. She'd been battling bone cancer — osteosarcoma.

"She was in the hospital with the kids and she saw that they did not have anything to do," Murnan said.

So she did something, starting a letter-writing group called MIB — Make It Better — specifically for kids with bone cancer. Now, those kids receive specific letters. The group gets a list of 38 patients a month and then gets focused.

"One of the things that helps the most when I am trying to write a letter is I sit down and I relax first, and I pray and then I think up some ideas," Knoell said.

And those curated ideas are being well-received by warriors like Ian Michaud, who lives in Maine.

"It's been very exciting, I love opening them," Ian Michaud said.

He's been through two amputations and a lot of chemotherapy, so he's received a lot of letters.

"It always has this symbol on here that shows that it's from the MIB agents, and so every time a package comes in, he was super excited that it was from them," she said. "It's an amazing feeling that people are thinking about him and what he's gone through and have an understanding about osteosarcoma. It was very personalized, also. It wasn't just a random letter, which was really cool."

"It's nice to know that there's a lot of people out there caring about us," Ian Michaud said.

"It's fun to get the letters, it's different than being on social media," Ian Michaud said. "It's fun to actually receive hard things, not just staring at a screen and scrolling — old school."

"We came from an age of letters, that is how we communicated all the time," Murnan said.

It's an artform they are teaching the next generation.

"We are in the business of encouragement," Droegemueller said. "I love the word encouragement, because 'couer' is heart, and to encourage is to put heart and feeling and caring into what you are doing."

They're teachers who deeply understand their own assignment.

Ian Michaud is fighting hard. He finished his last treatment and is home for the holidays.

The letter-writing ladies said their hope is that you or someone you know will start writing letters, because these words are truly being received.

If you want to help, go to the MIB Agents website.