It’s Launch Time!

While most of the world and the United States withdrew and contracted in 2020 due to the global pandemic that is still Coronavirus, we at The Darby Foundation made this a time to expand on an idea that started two years ago (see An Idea is Born).

Our team has been hard at work identifying and solving problems we noted in our original inspiration. Privacy was at the center of every discussion and every decision. While the site that inspired me in 2018 has struggled and shut down a few times, the need and demand for inspiring children and families that are struggling has only grown.

Our biggest hurdle to overcome was giving our recipients anonymity and protection of their private data such as their personal home address. We solved that by taking over the shipment process and keeping addresses out of the public’s hands. In order to do that and allow for quick shipment and delivery of messages, we designed postcards that would inspire as collectibles for the Kids on our lists.

And even that was not without challenges. We’ve learned a lot about paper weight and are working to solve problems between what works in the postal system versus what works in our small office printers to personalize each. We sent out test samples around the world, as far away as London, England and made notes and took photos of the results and worked to adapt. It turns out those little barcodes that the post office print on materials can be rather picky and delay delivery.

While we don’t have everything perfect, we’ve accomplished our goal of protecting our recipients while still providing an opportunity for them to receive 10s, 100s, maybe even 1000s of cards in 2021. If it inspires them and their families, gives them comfort during their trials, and helps them to find peace, grace, and hope then we will consider that a huge success.

Thank you for being part of this success. It will take a village, a global village to pull this off. And 2021 seems like the perfect year to do it.