While undergoing treatment for Stage 1 breast cancer in 2009, journalist and author Gina Mulligan’s mailbox was running over with well wishes.
“I received over 200 letters, many from friends of friends — people I had never met. They were all around me, and I realized letters are a precious gift with the power to heal,” she said.
As Mulligan underwent radiation treatments, she would surround herself with the letters and cards and read them. However, during these treatments, she noticed her fellow patients didn’t have the same outpouring of support.
“If you have a support system, you think others do, too. That’s not always the case,” she said.
Once Mulligan finished her treatment, she started Girls Love Mail, a Folsom, CA-based nonprofit organization that sends handwritten letters of encouragement to women diagnosed with breast cancer at hospitals and treatment centers in the United States and Canada.
Her organization of volunteers has encouraged more than 285,000 women since 2011 and sent 13,000 letters in 2025 alone.
Both individuals and groups can write letters. Groups have included classrooms, high schools, colleges, book clubs, businesses and scout groups.
“We have a lot of companies that write letters in bulk. We recently received 1,700 letters from one corporate event,” she said.
Girls Love Mail volunteers review all letters to make sure they meet the group’s guidelines, which are outlined on its website.
“The letters then go in our special Girls Love Mail envelope and are packaged up and mailed through the Postal Service. We love our local Folsom Post Office. We’re there all the time,” Mulligan said.
Girls Love Mail collects batches of letters and sends out more than 100 packages a month through the Folsom Post Office.
“We’re in the customer service business so when they come in, I try to do whatever I can to offer up assistance with the large mailers,” said Ryan Morris, a retail associate who often assists with the mailings.
The Girls Love Mail website has instructions on participating, including letter writing tips.
Mulligan said the organization’s success demonstrates how beneficial receiving a letter can be during a moment of despair.
“One woman wrote to us about the one letter she received through our organization,” she said. “She kept it on her nightstand, read it every night, took it with her to every doctor’s appointment and reread it during her full year of treatment. That’s how much it meant to her.”
