We had the good fortune of connecting with Vedha Vaddaraju and Iris Lai and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Vedha and Iris, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
It was one am on April 19, 2020. I was texting Iris, as we were thinking about what we could do to help the community. With the increasing prevalence of COVID-19, Iris and I wanted to do something to help those that were struggling as the pandemic has taken a toll on the mental health of many. That’s when Letters of Gold was created. We thought that letters were a really great avenue to connect people from all around the world to support one another because regardless of your age, your background anybody can write a letter which means everyone can uplift someone else. This prompted us to start and create a website for our organization that encourages people to write letters on the form provided that our team then packages and delivers physically or virtually as a pdf.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Every two months we choose a different group and need to send letters to. With the increasing prevalence of COVID-19, we’ve delivered letters to Frontline healthcare workers, cancer patients, refugees, survivors of domestic abuse, seniors, and teachers. We use these letters to uplift people and remind them that there is someone out there thinking about them and that they aren’t alone. We’re proud to say that by this weekend we would have delivered over 1500 letters across the US and abroad

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
A great place that Iris and I enjoy going to work on Letters of Gold and meeting with other businesses or organizations that we are working with or plan on working with in the future is Legacy West. Legacy West is a wonderful place to meet and relax while enjoying its lively atmosphere, diverse restaurants and shops, as well as green spaces.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to dedicate my shoutout to the amazing Letters of Gold Organization and team. As we hit our one-year mark this April, we have delivered more than 1500 letters and we couldn’t have done it without the support of our team. With the help of our amazing board of directors and our outreach team, we were able to increase our public reach and so far we have been contacted by a few notable organizations that we have worked with, including Hope’s Door New Beginning Center. In addition to this, we have also been featured on prominent news outlets including Good Morning Texas and Plano Star Courier.

Website: https://www.lettersofgold.org

Instagram: @lettersofgold.organization

Facebook: @lettersofgoldcommunity

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