Students at New Madrid Elementary in Missouri have a simple goal for America’s 250th anniversary: a postcard from all 50 states. It started as one Facebook post from school counselor Casey Rost, then families, friends, and total strangers started mailing cards from Texas, Oregon, California, Georgia, Alaska, and Washington D.C. Each day, students open the mail and match every postcard with a fact about U.S. history. One card from Pennsylvania led to a lesson about how that state’s name is misspelled on the Constitution.
Virginia is still on the wish list. Student Adley Brown says she hasn’t seen one yet and would love to. That’s where we come in. Anyone can send a postcard to New Madrid Elementary, 955 US Highway 61, New Madrid, MO 63869. Here on the Suncoast, we’ve got plenty worth sharing: the Ringling, a spring training game in Sarasota, a sunset over the Gulf.
It’s a cheap, easy way to connect a classroom in the Midwest with our corner of Florida, and it turns a mailbox into a history lesson. So the next time you spot a postcard rack at a shop on St. Armands or Anna Maria, grab one. What Suncoast spot would you put on a postcard?
