Postcard writing kit created by Fishers mom wins national award
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What is described as an intergenerational postcard exchange and keepsake journal product is getting national attention.
Postbook was created by Erica Seabaugh, a Fishers resident who also serves as vice president of in-home services for Indianapolis-based not-for-profit CICOA Aging & In-Home Solutions. It is designed to connect children with older adults through “the lost art of letter writing.”
The product received a 2023 Aging Achievement Award earlier this year from USAging, a national association representing and supporting the network of Area Agencies on Aging.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Seabaugh said Postbook was inspired by an assignment she gave her young son during the pandemic.
“I needed something to keep him busy every day while I was trying to work…so I had him write letters every day,” Seabaugh said. “And he developed this really great kind of organic relationship with his grandmother, who lives in Florida. They started writing back and forth throughout the pandemic, you know, found new ways to connect with one another in a way that they would not have before that.”
The Postbook kit includes two journals with postcards and with prompts designed to help the writer think about what to say. Then those postcards can be shared with another person, with the exchanged postcards being kept inside pockets within the journals.
“You get the postcard from them; you get to kind of see what it is that they had to say about the prompts, what’s important to them, kind of more about them on a deeper level,” she said.
Seabaugh said the product was intentionally designed as an intergenerational tool that doesn’t require a lot of technology and creates a simplistic approach to connecting with another person.
“Loneliness is becoming one of the biggest signifiers of health issues and health concerns, and that’s just been exemplified by the isolation that older adults really have experienced during the pandemic,” she said. “And so this just allows for a tool for them to easily connect with somebody else and feel like they’re able to share who they are and what’s important to them in that experience with someone else.”
Postbook is the second spin-off company from CICOA’s Wrinkle Innovation Studio, which the organization said aims to bring innovative ideas to market to improve the quality of life for the people it serves.
Seabaugh, a social worker by training, said developing the company came as a surprise to her, but the feedback has been positive.
“It’s so cool to just be able to see and hear about the impact that it’s having. “We’re able to hear some great testimonials from people who are using this, some things about how it’s making them feel more connected to other people, whether it’s somebody they knew really well or just somebody that they thought they knew well, but they have this great additional connection with them.”
She said the USAging award, which is considered one of the highest honors the association presents to its members, reinforces how important it is to continue coming up with new ideas to serve the people that CICOA works with.
The company received early financial support from CICOA as well as the Central Indiana Community Foundation. Sebaugh said they are still in the early stages and are looking for opportunities for further growth, including new Postbook products.
Postbook was originally developed with a B2C focus to drive individual sales, but Seabaugh said they’ve seen a lot of opportunities in the B2B space.
In addition to developing a Grandparent Kit, which provides additional journals based on the number of grandchildren a customer has, Postbook is also looking at developing additional group-based kits that, for example, could connect a group of adults in a senior center with a group of kids in a summer camp.
“We’re really hopeful that the next year or two will bring additional editions of [Postbook] and hopefully bring in some some local artists or local authors to help with collaborating on future editions.”