About the Founding Families
Cameron and Jason met in 7th grade math class, and if you ask their English teacher, they were the two boys who used to run late because they would go the long way outside the school to knock on her classroom window on the way in (they thought she was cute). They’ve been inseparable ever since.
They went to college together, stood in each other’s weddings, and eventually married: Cameron to Jessica, Jason to Orlynne. They ended up as next-door neighbors sharing a backyard and more late-night hot tub conversations than you can count (they say good fences make good neighbors; theirs has none). Between the two families, there are six kids who are growing up less like neighbors and more like siblings.
Pick-A-Path Letters was born in that backyard.
Inspired by getting mail from their penpal cousins across the country, the kids started making their own mailboxes and leaving each other letters between the two houses. Just because. No phones, no screens, just the pure joy of something showing up in a box with your name on it. Watching that, something clicked for us.
We’d always valued experiences over things. We wanted our kids reading, imagining, slowing down, but there are a lot of things to compete with these days! One night in the hot tub, we started asking: what if a story felt like an experience? What if you could combine the joy of getting mail with the ability to shape a story with your choices?
The answer to that question became Pick-A-Path Letters.
We believe in the power of a good story told slowly. In the magic of real mail arriving with your child’s name on it. In screen-free moments that pull families together. And most of all, in letting kids feel what it’s like to make a choice and watch it matter.
That’s what we’re building. We hope it finds its way into your family’s backyard too.
— Cameron & Jessica Christensen, Jason & Orlynne Brown