Letter Stats: 2016

I usually try to do this post at the end of a year, and not at the beginning of the next year, but I just haven't been able to find the time to sit down and calculate the letters I've been receiving. Better late than never, right?

With Compassion, the magic number (we've all heard it) is 6. If you are a sponsor that writes regularly, your children are supposed to write back every 2 months. That's 6 times a year. While that is the magic number, we all know that that number is rarely hit. I did have a few children this year that met, and even exceed, that number.

Just like in past years, I find that most of my children are in the 3-4 letter range. With the new letter system that was rolled out in April, I did find some delay in letters, but most countries seem to catch up in just a few months. Other countries, like Haiti, seemed to find a hard time getting those letters sent out.

Most (but not all) of the children that you see wrote just 1-2 letters, are kids that I have had for less than a year, so statistically wise, they shouldn't be counted in my year stats, but I can't just leave them out, haha. I also have many children that I haven't heard from at all yet. These are my newest kids and I can't wait to start hearing from them!

My winner this year is Emanuel. He wrote me 7 letters!

I received 6 letters each from Ernest, Jhonerx, Rujikorn, and Sadiya. 

Celeste, Daniel, Jonatan, Kalpesh, Mulwa, and Nikko each wrote me 5 letters. 

I heard from Brenda, Carlos, Carolin, Derrick, Haji, Jose, Lina, Nandini, and Solomon each 4 times. 

I received 3 letters each from Agness, Chintada, Daniel, Eric, Faith, Kwizera, Maria, and Rodrigo. 

I only heard from the following kids 2 times this year: Emanise, Ronaldo, Sandesh, Sevenson, Tamiru, Brian, and Veronika. 

Then my kiddos that wrote me 1 letter each are as follows: Becca, Bilor, Djimitri, Enmanuel, Erick, Gary, Indresh, Dagim, Jhon, Wendjy. 

I have to admit, I was quite surprised to only hear from Jhon one time this year because he was my letter writing winner, last year. Hopefully I hear from him more often in 2017. 

The by month breakdown goes like this: 

January: 10

February: 17

March: 12

April: 7

May: 4

June: 8

July: 6

August: 15 

September: 13

October: 17

November: 19

December: 17

Total: 145

The total amount of letter is significantly lower than last year, even though I have more kids than I've heard had before. I hope that whatever caused the major slowdown this year is fixed and counts will start rising again next year. 

Of course, I am grateful for every single one of those 145 letters. Blessings from wonderful kids around the world!