Foodie Penpals - October!

Foodie PenPals. Have you heard of it? It's a great program run by Lindsay over at the Lean Green Bean. She started it in September 2011 with 30 participants and it has grown to over 1300! Now that's success! In a nutshell each participant receives a foodie pen pal to send a little foodie related package that shouldn't cost more than $15 (not including shipping). It can be home made goods, local  food items, or other foodie related treats. Then each person sending a package also receives a similar package (though not from the person they sent one too). Organizing it must take a lot of dedication and effort and Lindsay does a great job of pulling everything together!

My first Foodie Penpal package! Thanks Danielle!

This month was my first time participating in the program and it was so a lot of  fun. I loved going to Granville Island and buying little things for the package I sent to Kayla at KitchenofKy. And just as much fun was receiving my food pen pal package from Danielle of Eating Running Living. 

Danielle sent some amazing items - none of which I had tried before! The chocolate lasted about 5 minutes before I tore it open. It was fantastic - and really smooth - yum. My favorite thing by far was the Chicago style popcorn. Have you ever tried it? It sounds crazy but it's caramel corn and cheddar popcorn mixed together. It tastes amazing! In fact, we went out and bought another bag a couple of days later :)

I didn't share the chocolate or the popcorn with the kids but I did let them try the other bars. They loved those and I only ended up with a bite of each! We all loved the granola with dried strawberries and pieces of chocolate and the naan crackers were great with hummous!

Thanks Danielle for such a great introduction to Foodie Pen Pals!

Want to become a foodie penpal? Read this from Lindsay:

-On the 5th of every 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 are 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 Penplas is open to US & Canadian 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. 

If you’re interested in participating for November, please CLICK HERE to fill out the participation form and read the terms and conditions. 

You must submit your information by November 4th as pairings will be emailed on November 5th!

*If you're from somewhere besides the US, Canada or Europe and want to participate, send me an email and I'll see if we get enough interest this month!