A new charity called “Girls Love Mail” is fighting breast cancer with good penmanship and the spirit of encouragement started with Evelyn Lauder’s pink ribbon, says the group’s founder and cancer survivor Gina L. Mulligan.

The goal of Girls Love Mail is to give the gift of a hand-written letter to women going through breast cancer treatment. People from all over the country are writing letters of encouragement and sending them to Girls Love Mail based in Folsom, California. The letters are then distributed via appropriate physician’s offices, support groups, and cancer centers. Girls Love Mail is encouraged by Susan G. Komen for the Cure Sacramento Valley.

In 2009, writer Mulligan was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time she was working on an epistolary novel, or a novel that is made up of all letters. While undergoing treatment and writing letters for her novel, she started receiving letters and cards filled with well wishes. Mulligan received over 200 letters, many from people she had never met. “Letters were all around me, and I realized letters are a precious gift with the power to heal,” she says.