“Owls are magical creatures most often used for delivering post and parcels in the wizarding world. The are known for their speed and discretion and can find recipients without an address.”
In the third chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, “The Letters from No One,” Harry Potter –‘the boy who lived’ but who was mistreated by his guardians and kept in a small dark cupboard under the stairs– is prevented from receiving mail that is addressed to him. During this chapter, Harry’s ill-advised guardians on Privet Drive are bent on concurrently dehumanizing and dewizardizing him. They are ashamed to be associated with a “half-blood” and they consider him dangerous, even though their fear is based, not in reality but, in prejudice. At one point during the third chapter, Vernon Dursley, fearing he and his wife are being spied on and watched, tells her, “I’m not having one in the house… Didn’t we swear when we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense.” Note Rowling’s pun in the phrase “stamp out” – in reference to Vernon’s attempts to prevent Harry from receiving a letter in the mail. The pun isn’t merely playful; a moral parable can be found within it, as well. Vernon, unaware of the irony of his own glaring hypocrisy, announces that he wishes to “stamp out” “nonsense,” which he calls “dangerous.” Contrary to the Dursleys’ wishes to make Harry believe that no one cares for him and that he is “no one,” Harry is, indeed, someone – someone important. And the “No One” who is trying to send him a letter in the mail is, in fact, someone important, too.
The experience of being in a mental institution, or of being labeled with a psychiatric label, can often feel like being held hostage under the stairs by the Dursleys. It can feel isolating, ostracizing, demoralizing, and dehumanizing. And those who have been there and felt it know it more than anyone else. The December Letters Project, inspired by the owl-led and literacy-led rescue of Harry Potter from under the stairs, is an attempt to send messages of care, love, and rescue to our friends who are institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals. It is grounded in and was derived from lived-experience community wisdom. As such, the project aims to transcend the boundaries that keep love and care out of the institution by sending letters and cards into it. The goal of the project is to ensure that each year, around the winter solstice, our neighbors who may feel isolated and alone, proverbially trapped in a cupboard under the stairs on Privet Drive, will have an entourage of OWLs coming to their rescue with messages of fellowship, support, and solidarity.
About the December Letters Project
The December Letters Project is a mental health literacy project aimed at alleviating the isolation, loneliness, and stigma that often accompany inpatient stays at mental health institutions. By flooding our local mental health institutions with support and love for our friends within those institutions during the winter solstice, through cards and letters, our goal is to build a bridge between institution and community. Groups and organizations anywhere can participate in the December Letters Project by reaching out to local mental institutions to build a bridge and to gather and deliver cards during the winter solstice. Locally, we come together with other community organizations, classes, groups, and schools to deliver cards annually to our friends at two local institutions: the Buffalo Psychiatric Center and Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center.
We rely on generous owls (aka letter-delivering community members) to participate in the project by writing secular cards with messages of hope for our friends at the psychiatric hospitals in our area during the winter solstice. If you would like to be part of the project and to write secular cards and notes, you can make cards with us or run the project in your own community. For those who wish to participate in the project in western New York, please note: the cards and notes cannot be sealed, and we ask that you write something from your heart and your pen. We encourage messages longer than one sentence and a signature: messages of a few sentences to a paragraph or two work well. Artistic creations on cards are welcomed and encouraged. The goal is for each person we reach to find solace in the card or letter, and for it to be something that brings comfort in their day and that will stay with them through their stay in the hospital and beyond. We have students at schools and universities who work with us on the project annually, but we need the help of the larger community to make sure we have enough cards for every person admitted to our local institutions to receive one. Each year, there are hundreds of people in our community alone who find themselves in psychiatric hospitals during the winter solstice.
The project relies on each OWL to make a small batch of cards for the project. A little goes a long way, if we come together to help. Each year, we make cards in November and December, and then we gather cards for our friends throughout both months, up until our December deadline. We know these cards mean a lot, both symbolically and in the hearts of those who accept and receive them.
Check out our flyer, which you can print out or use as inspiration to make a flyer of your own:
A Little History on the December Letters Project
The December Letters Project was founded and launched by Madwomen in the Attic in 2018. The project was devised by the founding cohort of MITA, which was founded in the spring of 2017. We started small, with lofty goals of spreading unconditional love and acceptance, and of traversing the walls that keep us apart, with the project. Over the years that we have done the project, the local and global impacts of the project have grown. We delivered about 200 cards and letters locally during our first year of the project; in 2022, we delivered close to 500 cards and letters! Since the inception of the project, word about the project has spread, and the project itself spread to Europe, Canada, and Australia.
Check out some fragments from the December Letters Project archive, to learn about the impact and history of this project.
The December Letters Project In Schools
The December Letters Project is a great project for teachers at K-12 schools and colleges to bring to students. Students can learn a lot about empathy, compassion, mental health, and our mental healthcare system, as well as our mental healthcare system’s history, by being part of the project. Schools, school clubs, and campus organizations have participated in the December Letters Project since its inception. Teachers running the project can incorporate it into already existing curricula or develop lesson plans and a curriculum based on and inspired by the project. If you are interested in bringing the project to your school, school club, or campus, we encourage you to touch base with us for lesson plan ideas or to share with us what lesson plans and activities you develop in relation to the project. Anything you share might benefit other students, educators, or educational leaders who want to be part of the project and mental health advocacy. Please contact us for resources or more information, or to let us know you want to be part of the project, at madwomenofwny@gmail.com!
Additional Resources
If you are interested in holding the December Letters Project in your state, town, community, congregation, school, organization, or club, please contact us at madwomenofwny@gmail.com!
MITA’s Co-founders Describe the December Letters Project:
Madwomen in the Attic 