Client: The Long Table (fictional) · Format: Direct Mail Fundraising Letter · Type: Spec Sample
A nonprofit in Akron, Ohio that delivers meals and weekly companionship visits to homebound seniors living alone. This is a two-page direct mail appeal for the organization’s annual spring campaign, targeting lapsed and prospective individual donors.
March 2026
Dear Friend,
Last November, one of our volunteers knocked on a door on Diagonal Road and nobody answered.
This wasn’t unusual. Sometimes people are sleeping. Sometimes they’re in the bathroom and it takes a minute. Our volunteers are patient. They wait.
But Helen’s car was in the driveway. The television was on. And after three minutes of knocking, our volunteer called our office, and our office called 911.
Helen had fallen in her kitchen the night before. She’d been on the floor for fourteen hours. She couldn’t reach the phone. She couldn’t reach the counter to pull herself up. She told the paramedics she’d started to wonder if anyone would come.
Someone came. Because every Tuesday at 11:15, a volunteer from The Long Table shows up at Helen’s door with a warm meal and forty-five minutes of conversation. And when Helen didn’t answer, that volunteer didn’t leave.
I want to tell you that Helen’s story is rare. It isn’t.
There are more than 14,000 adults over 65 living alone in Summit County. Some of them have family nearby. Many don’t. Some of them drive. A lot of them stopped. Some of them will talk to another human being today. Too many of them won’t.
These aren’t people who need to be saved. They’re people who need to be visited. There’s a difference, and it matters.
The Long Table started eight years ago when I left my job as a hospice nurse because I couldn’t stop thinking about the patients who didn’t need hospice yet — the ones who were just alone. I kept meeting people in their final weeks who told me the same thing: the worst part wasn’t being sick. The worst part was the quiet.
So I started showing up earlier. Not with morphine or medical equipment. With soup. With a chair pulled up to the kitchen table. With the kind of visit that doesn’t have a clinical purpose — just a human one.
Today, The Long Table serves 340 seniors across Summit County. Every week, a volunteer delivers a home-cooked meal and stays for a real visit. Not a check-in. Not an assessment. A visit. The kind where you sit down, ask how someone’s doing, and actually wait for the answer.
Our volunteers hear a lot of stories. They look at a lot of photo albums. They hear about grandchildren they’ve never met and husbands who’ve been gone for years and gardens that don’t get planted anymore. Sometimes the conversation is heavy. Sometimes it’s just nice. Either way, it’s the part of the week that matters most to the people we visit.
Helen told one of our staff members last month that Tuesdays are the only day she gets dressed before noon.
That sentence breaks my heart. And it keeps me going.
Here’s what I’m asking: a gift of $50 feeds and visits one senior for an entire month. That’s four meals. Four conversations. Four times someone shows up at the door and says, I’m here.
$100 covers two months. $250 covers five. If you can give more, we’ll stretch it further than you’d believe — our overhead is 11%, which means almost every dollar you send ends up at someone’s kitchen table.
I know your mailbox is full of letters like this one. I know every organization has a story and a need and a number. So I won’t pretend ours is more important than anyone else’s.
But I will tell you this: Helen is home now. She’s recovered. And every Tuesday at 11:15, she’s dressed and waiting by the door before our volunteer even knocks.
That’s what showing up does.
If you can help us keep showing up, use the enclosed card or visit thelongtable.org/give. And if you can’t give right now, I understand. But if you know someone who’s eating alone tonight — a neighbor, a parent, a person you haven’t called in a while — maybe give them a call. That’s free, and it matters more than you think.
With gratitude,
Margaret Chen
Founder & Executive Director, The Long Table
P.S. Every dollar donated before April 30 will be matched by the Burton Family Foundation, up to $25,000. Your $50 becomes $100. Your $100 becomes $200. Helen would tell you not to wait. She’s bossy like that.
This is a spec sample — not commissioned work. The Long Table is a fictional organization. Written by Paul Scott.
Paul Scott 