Opening Up
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BY MARIANNA BRELAND
Floyd Brown the postman knocks on Delia Mae Dennis’ door with a box in his hands, it is going to be a good day. Every other week he brings a package for Delia Mae from Sue Vondrashek, 1,812 miles away in Los Angeles. Every other week homebound Delia Mae gets to take a break from her game shows, her Bible reading and her sewing, and revel in the never-failing adrenaline rush of cutting the tape to see what is inside the box.
Sue Vondrashek, left, and Delia Mae Dennis became great friends through the Box Project, which brings people together through the mail.
It is always an average white cardboard box with Delia Mae’s address written carefully out of love with the casualness of a ballpoint pen. Peek inside, and you can find contents ranging from sewing fabric to quizzes to a gold-leafed book of poetry – small, thoughtful things that warm the heart of a friend. Though Sue and Delia Mae have met only once, they have communicated through letters, packages and phone calls for the past four years. This unusual relationship began through The Box Project. In 1962, The Box Project was founded to help comfortable families in the North reach out to struggling families in the rural South. On a plane ride to a peace conference in Geneva, Switzerland, activist Virginia Naeve of New Hampshire met Coretta Scott King, who told her about the poverty-stricken families of the Mississippi Delta, and one family in particular. The more Naeve thought about the Delta, the more she wrestled with finding peace in her heart. She had to do
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