OU-TU School of Community Medicine and Okmulgee Primary School held a year-end celebration last week for the PenPal Program. PenPals is a new letter exchange program between the OU-TU med and PA students and fourth graders at Okmulgee Primary School. The goal of PenPals is to connect elementary students with medical students and physician assistant students in an effort to encourage elementary students to practice their reading and writing skills, motivate them to pursue higher education, and cultivate meaningful mentorships. Each 4th grader that participated was paired with a medical or physician assistant student pen pal and letters were exchanged between pen pals once a month throughout the school year. The purpose of the end of year celebration was for the pen pals to finally meet each other in person and spend quality time with each other. They ate snacks together, played Operation, did “surgery” on the mannequin, learned how to use stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs, and even played Uno. The hope for this program is for fourth grade students to learn more about STEM and know the path to a medical career is feasible and attainable for them too.