Community Spotlight

Featuring DENISE STOUGHTON

Creator of the Bainbridge Island Kindred Spirit Mailbox

HOW DID YOU COME ACROSS THE KINDRED SPIRIT MAILBOX INITIALLY?

I came across the first Kindred Spirit Mailbox last year when I was in the thick of writing my book about mailboxes, Meet Me at the Mailbox: The Fabulous Mailboxes of Bainbridge Island. During this time, a friend living in North Carolina mentioned this Kindred Spirit mailbox I had never heard of. While on the phone with her, I researched the mailbox online and found many search results, including a video with famous author Nicholas Sparks who wrote a book inspired by the Kindred Spirit mailbox. I thought, “Wow, this is a pretty big thing if Nicholas Sparks is writing about it!” The original is a lone mailbox on an uninhabited island — just a mailbox and a bench. A woman named Claudia Sailor had a vision for the Kindred Spirit Mailbox in the late 1970s and soon made it a reality. Though she did not live close by, this island on North Carolina’s coast had special meaning for her. Once constructed, she filled the mailbox with self-addressed envelopes, enabling a new form of self-reflection. Wanting to share the idea with others, she moved the mailbox to Bird Island and began filling it with blank journals instead of self-addressed envelopes so other people could write. Over the years, she kept filling it up with journals, and it grew. Forty-five years have passed, and you can still access the mailbox by a wooden plank walkway connecting you to the island, followed by another mile-and-a-half walk to the mailbox.

To read the full article head over to Bainbridge Island Recreation Connection Fall 2023