The Internet Is Coming Together to Mail Holiday Cards to "Britain's Loneliest Schoolboy"

Ten-year-old Aron Anderson is the sole pupil at what may possibly be the loneliest school in the world. After the remainder of his classmates graduated to a secondary school on a neighboring island, he became the only school-aged child of the 70 residents living on the Scottish isle of Out Skerries. When he's not attending school in the two-room building, Aron spends his time playing with ducks, sheep, and his dog—his best friends on the island. In an effort to make his holiday a little less lonely this year, an online campaign has been launched to send him Christmas cards from around the world. 

The initiative is the brainchild of Reddit moderator BesottedScot of the subreddit /r/Scotland. After reading Anderson’s story in The Telegraph the previous week, he felt inspired to show the boy that others were thinking about him this holiday season. He called upon residents of Scotland to mail Christmas cards to his school's address, and for people outside of Scotland to send postcards so that Aron can see where in the world people are writing him from. 

"We have 20,000 subscribers on here and if even 1 percent of you send a card that's 200 cards to a lonely boy to cheer his Christmas right up,” BesottedScot wrote in his Reddit post. "I hope you'll do me proud and send some nice festive cheer.”

According to his post, BesottedScot called the Skerries Community School last week to notify them of what will likely be an alarmingly high number of Christmas cards coming their way. The campaign has already spread far beyond the subreddit, so this Christmas will likely be one to remember for both Aron and his local mailman. As one redditor noted, "We'll have to do something for Britain's most perturbed postman next year.”