Hello, friends!

Did you know there’s a day created especially for you?

National Friendship Day is celebrated the first Sunday in August. It’s a day to remind your friends they are valued and loved.

Not surprisingly, the day was first proposed in 1919 by Hallmark, which encouraged people to show love to their friends in the form of greeting cards. The Great Depression, a decade or so later, squashed the celebration, as people couldn’t afford the extravagance of sending their love via mail.

National Friendship Day was resurrected in 1998 when none other than Winnie the Pooh was named the world’s Ambassador of Friendship at the United Nations.

The intended message of the annual observance hasn’t changed over the years. The National Friendship Day website encourages people to “reach out to all of your friends and tell them how special they are. ... Send a note or talk on the phone. ... If you live close, do something together.”

The day is also a time to reach out to old friends with whom you’ve lost touch.

“It’s easy to lose contact with old friends, but it can be just as easy to get back in touch once again,” according to the website.

The day encourages making new friends as well, whether it be chatting for a little while with the barista at your favorite coffee shop or with the person also waiting in line. One can’t really have too many friends, right?!

Social media has upped the National Friendship Day game. Additional suggestions for making contact and telling someone how much you appreciate them are to reach out on Facebook or Instagram.

There are even specific hashtags, if you’re so inclined: #NationalFriendshipDay and #friendshipday.

If, by chance, Aug. 6 comes and goes and you’ve forgotten to commemorate the day, don’t despair. It seems the emotional appeal of friendship has sparked similar observances: Earlier in the year are National Best Friends Day, National Make a Friend Day and National Send a Card to a Friend Day, among others. Coming up is National I Love You Day, Oct. 14.

And the entire month of September is billed as Friendship Month, so you have 30 days to reach out and show some love.

After all, in the words of our beloved Pooh Bear, “A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.”

Kelly Lutterschmidt

editor

Whitehall-Coplay Press

Northampton Press

Catasauqua Press