A group of 23 Shaker High School students met their pen pals in the Avila retirement community on Tuesday.

The pairs have been writing letters back and forth for several weeks already as part of Dr. James Bell’s English class.

The first pen pal letters were written in September. This was these students first face-to-face interaction with their pen pals.

“Christmas is a lot about sharing, and this is a way of sharing intergenerationally,” said Dennis Murphy, an Avila resident. “I think it was a terrific program. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed participating in it.”

This is the sixth year of the program.