There are many wonderful and inexpensive ways to support the United States Postal Service, which was established in 1775 with Benjamin Franklin as its first Postmaster General and has been issuing stamps for 173 years.
- Send mail to your family members and friends.
- Send mail to people you don't even know personally, to thank them for what they do.
- Send mail to people in nursing homes. Here's one way, and here's another.
- Send mail to people all over the world by joining Postcrossing.
- Send mail to a new pen pal.
For all of these, you'll need stamps. Buying stamps helps to support the U.S. Postal Service. For just 35¢, you can mail a postcard anywhere in the United States. For just 55¢, you can mail a standard letter anywhere in the United States. For just $1.20, you can mail a postcard or standard letter anywhere on the planet Earth!
There are all sorts of groovy stamps available from the USPS. Right now, they have stamps highlighting or commemorating the 19th Amendment, sculptor Ruth Asawa, Bugs Bunny, the great outdoors, voices of the Harlem Renaissance, American gardens, Earth Day, Maine's statehood, Arnold Palmer, orchids, Gwen Ifill, military working dogs, state and county fairs (a personal favorite of mine), the 1969 moon landing, frogs, Sally Ride, Scooby-Doo and much more.
You might like some of these stamps so much that you'll want to collect them, rather than stick them on envelopes and postcards. That's cool. Stamp collecting remains a very popular hobby, and there's no right or wrong way to do it. Collect what you like! Stamp collecting as a hobby, when it involves buying new releases from the USPS, has the double benefit of both bringing you joy and supporting an important American institution, one that helps undergird our democracy.
So get writing, stamping, sending and collecting!
Also, if the U.S Postal Service is important to you, let your congressperson and senators know. It seems like that's a thing they should know.
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