This is what came in my foodie pen pal box this month! My daughter took the picture. 
This was my first month to participate in the Foodie Pen Pals program started by Lindsay of The Lean Green Bean blog. I was so excited to participate. When I was younger, I had several penpals from all over the world like Japan, Ivory Coast and Scotland. It was so fun receiving their letters and other things they would send me in the mail. When I found out about the Foodie Pen Pals, I was all over it! Food and penpals—sounded like a good combination to me!
The program is for anyone—whether you’re a blogger or not! And the person who mailed to me was Allie from Illinois and she is a reader not a blogger. We exchanged a couple of emails so I could let her know of any food allergies (we have none) and preferences and that’s it.
My whole family was excited to see what she’d sent and once it was opened, they couldn’t wait to start sampling! Allie sent us some of her favorites and surprisingly (and way more fun), there was only one that we had ever had before so the rest were new to us! In it we had:
Mojo Bars—haven’t tried these yet but they sure do look yummy.
Pirates’ Booty—one of OUR favorites
Way Better Sweet Chili tortilla chips-I’ll admit that I was skeptical of these but my kids insisted we take them to the pool one day. They are SO good! But be warned, it’s hard to stop eating them!
Peanut Butter & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams spread–Super yum! I think I may have found my new late-night snack!
A variety of fruit leather—these will be perfect for the kids to take to their swim meets!
Many thanks to Allie for the great Foodie Penpal selections. Since we give to someone different than we receive from, I gave to a fellow blogger, Katie T. over at Arugula Lovers. You can see what I gave her by visiting her site. And of course, extra thanks to Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean for starting the program!
I’m planning to participate again in June and after reading some of the other bloggers’ posts, I’ll remember this time to take a picture of the items that I send to my penpal.
Sound like something fun that you’d like to do? Keep reading this more detailed explanation of the program:
-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents. Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!
***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!
[...] may remember that last month was my first month to participate in the Foodie Pen Pals program started by Lindsay of The Lean Green Bean blog. We [...]