In the April issue of Guideposts there was an article written by Nancy O’Dell who is a reporter for Access Hollywood. She wrote about how she grew up playing with her aunt Ellen who was about 20 years older than her and had Down Syndrome. She loved playing with her and had lots of cherished memories spending time with her.

When Nancy got older she was a reporter in Miami and did a story on Best Buddies which is an organization that promotes relationships between people with intellectual disabilities and those without.

After reading Nancy’s article I was curious as to what Best Buddies was all about so I checked out their website www.bestbuddies.org. Once on the website I found that not only do they link people together in person but they also have something called e-Buddies. I thought this might be something I would be interested in so I went to www.ebuddies.org and started reading about what it was all about.

You basically agree to correspond with an intellectually disabled person through email at least once a week. This gives them a chance to develop computer skills and to have a relationship with a new friend. Well I send lots of emails and would love to meet a new friend so I decided to sign up. You have to be 11 and older, which I surprisingly enough qualified for, and have to have your application processed and approved. References were requested and I had to fill out a questionnaire asking me about my interests so they could match me with someone with similar interests. If you are over 18 they charge you a one time fee of $50. All emails going both directions go through the organization before getting to the recipient. One of my references said she was going to tell them that I pick my nose so apparently that was okay because they approved me. LOL!

I got my logon information and was told my application was approved but I did not have an e-Buddy yet. After logging on I saw a message board so I decided to see what people were saying about their experiences with e-Buddies. I read several posts that said they had been approved for almost a year and had still not been assigned an e-Buddy. I also saw comments that after people received their assigned person they never got a response back from them. I have to admit I started to feel a bit upset that this may not turn out to be what I was hoping for.

Well I must be lucky or something because I got an email from the organization a couple of days ago saying that I had an e-Buddy named Anne. Since I had things going on that evening I decided to email her the next day. Before I even got anything typed up she emailed me. She had a friend help her type but she told me that she is short with brown hair and wears glasses. She asked what I looked like. She said she has a job packaging golf balls. I was so excited to hear from her so I emailed her back and told her a little bit about myself and asked her some questions. We are not allowed to disclose our full names or addresses unless approved by the organization. She probably lives several states away.

Anyway – I am excited to see where this goes. Hopefully it will be a good experience and when Evan turns 11 maybe he will want to get an e-Buddy too.