How This Woman Turned Her Depression Into a Worldwide Movement of Love Letters

“The world doesn’t need another website,” declares the homepage of The World Needs More Love Letters. “It doesn’t need another app or a network. What it needs is really basic. Simple. Bare-boned and often forgotten in the race to get followers, likes and status.”

According to The World Needs More Love Letters founder Hannah Brencher, what the world needs is more love.

When Brencher moved to New York City after graduating from college, she thought her dream life was about to begin. Instead, she found herself facing a different beast: depression.

“I found myself grappling with depression, unable to tell my family and friends because I was so ashamed,” she says on her website. “Depression is a scary thing. Depression, when you make yourself journey through it alone, is terrifying.”

So, she wrote. First, it was just in her notebook. Then notes became letters, and she started leaving them around New York City. After blogging about her experience, she posed the question: “Do you need someone to write you a love letter today? Just ask.”

According to her site, she spent the next year writing letters to people from all over the world.

Now, her personal path to grappling with depression has become The World Needs More Love Letter, a community of volunteers who write anonymous love letters to those who need them most. On her website, you can nominate anyone (even yourself) to receive handwritten love notes. A handful of those nominees are featured on the site, with a backstory and address.

Andre, a 16-year-old from Australia who, according to the The World Needs More Love Letters Facebook page, needed a reminder he is worthy of love, received 201 letters. He was nominated by his mother, who wrote to More Love Letter:

We are completely lost for words. We in no way expected to receive such an out pouring of heartfelt support, love, compassion and inspiration from so many truly remarkable people from across the globe. Letters came flooding in from right across the USA and from every corner of the world including Canada, Vietnam, Singapore, Romania, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Holland, New Zealand, Brazil, Ireland, Uk, Scotland and of-course our treasured home country Australia.

"Im finding it hard to express my feelings right now, so I’ll end with just saying a big THANK YOU for writing" Andre pic.twitter.com/K8VfnN0ozJ

— TWNMLL (@moreloveletters) August 25, 2015

 

The movement hasn’t lost its roots. Members of the The World Needs More Love Letters community are still encouraged to leave love letters in public places. Letters have been found in Chicago, Toronto and Nashville, and even as far as Norway. It’s proof that while depression is a global phenomena, love is too.

“Maybe you need the reminder today. Keep fighting. You deserve good things for your life,” a letter reads in an Upworthy video (below). “It sounds too simple, but it is amazing the number of people who believe that for other people, but not themselves. You deserve them too. All the good things. Don’t settle. Don’t give in. This world needs you. Don’t quit.”

 Watch the original Upworthy video: