Review and Giveaway: Mail4kids (CLOSED)

I remember that as a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to watch for the mail truck to come by every day and then run out to get the mail for my parents. Rarely was there ever anything for me in there, especially when I was really little – but I loved the surprise of finding something with my name on it every so often. And even when there wasn’t, my parents would sometimes give me pieces of ‘junk’ mail to play with. Now, as a parent myself, I see my kids get that same excitement whenever they see the mail come – and on those rare occasions when they find an envelope in there with one of their names on it.

Can I mention that one of my favorite parts of doing product reviews is how often I receive pieces of mail that aren’t bills, junk or advertisements? I guess there’s still a kid in me to some extent. 

So when I had the chance to review Mail4kids, a service that specifically addresses this need kids have to receive mail of their very own, I knew that my girls would be all over the opportunity.

What it is:

Mail4kids offers a subscription service where once a week your child will receive a uniquely created, color postcard addressed specifically to him or her. Not just a ‘mail’ service – the cards are something that kids can enjoy collecting and that are educational as well. Each postcard contains an image on the front as well as information about the image on the back. Your child will also receive a ‘starter kit’, complete with a collectors box in which to store and organize the cards, index cards for organizing each category, a starter pack of collector’s cards, and a special welcome gift. From the website:

If your kids love getting mail as much as ours, then you are going to love Mail4kids. We heard “is there any mail for me?” so often that we knew we had to “address” this burning desire for mail with something fun, educational and collectible. After all who doesn’t love getting mail? And shouldn’t we all get something fun in the mail box at least before the bills and junk mail start up?

Along with the collector’s cards, there are also monthly contests that kids can enter as well as specific mailings sent out around holidays and your child’s birthday.

Courtesy of Mail4kids, we received a starter kit as well as a sample of one of the weekly mailings to try out the service.

Here’s my our take on it:

As I could’ve predicted, my girls were absolutely thrilled when a fun, decorated box arrived specifically for them. In this particular case, the box was addressed to me since they didn’t have my kids’ names, but normally the items arrive addressed to your kid(s). I knew what it was though, so made sure that they were right there when we opened it.

Inside, we found a set of the collector cards, the index cards, a notebook and pencil, stickers, and a ‘dinosaur egg’ that you soak in water to reveal a dinosaur toy. They were all packaged in the collector box which had then been wrapped, decorated and sent.

The girls have had a lot of fun with the cards. So far we’ve organized them with the index cards and have them stored inside the box. We also divvied up the rest of the goodies – one daughter got the notepad, another got the pencil, and my littlest had a blast with the stickers. They are sharing the dinosaur egg since I didn’t want to deal with the fight that would have ensued if any one of them had gotten it. 

I think that the fun part of this service is not knowing exactly what you’ll get every week and having the fun of collecting something that’s both fun and educational. I can see kids trading the cards back and forth and watching for photos from specific categories. I also like that they’re not just getting ‘mail’, but something actually worth receiving. Having it be something they can collect from week to week is a great idea and a way to make ‘mail’ be more than just the excitement of finding an envelope for them in the mailbox, but a way to look forward to what’s actually in that envelope as well.

One thing I wondered about is whether the service would actually be worth paying for, since I could do something similar myself for just the cost of a postage stamp. And what I realized is that although yes, I could in theory drop something in the mail every week – I don’t really want to have to. I have a hard enough time remembering to run the errands I need to, pay the bills I need to and figuring out what else needs to get done from one day to the next. I don’t want to HAVE to put together some kind of mailing every single week. Not to mention having to create or make something (without them finding or seeing it prematurely) to send, and remembering to send it without fail. Because the thought of seeing the disappointment on my kids’ faces on the one week when I would forget is definitely not something I care to imagine. It’s not the actual mailing you’re paying for so much – as the convenience and dependability of having someone else take care of it for you, and knowing that every week the envelope will arrive.

When we received the sample weekly mailing, there was the expected postcard inside – as well as a related coloring page. The girls thought that was a pretty cool thing, to get something to color in the mail – and I think it will put a lot more meaning into it when they sit down to color the page (I copied it for the other two so they each can color one).

The bottom line:

Mail4kids provides a unique service that offers parents a fun way to give their kids the enjoyment and excitement of receiving actual mail specifically for them, as well as being able to collect high quality postcards that are educational as well. Kids love to collect things – from rocks or seashells to toys and stuffed animals. These postcards are interesting, attractive, don’t take up much space – and can cover any number of topics and categories. The starter kit provides a good start so kids can become excited right away and look forward to receiving additional cards.

Where can you find it?:

The site is located at http://www.mail4kids.ca. The service costs $25 initially to sign up, and then you can pay either $12 monthly (price includes shipping costs to US or Canada) or $120 annually (no shipping costs necessary so you save $24 total). Your kid(s) will receive 52 weekly mailings per year.

Would you like to try it?:

I have the opportunity to give away a free month of weekly mailings (no starter kit) from Mail4kids to a lucky reader! If you’d like to give the excitement of receiving mail of his or her own to a special child in your life, here are the rules:

1. Enter by leaving a comment here to let me know who you would like to send these to if you win. Please don’t just say ‘choose me’, or your entry will be discarded.
2. The contest will run until Monday, July 20th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be selected through random drawing, contacted by e-mail, listed on this post and also submitted to PRIZEY. US entries only, please.
3. Please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you! If you don’t wish to leave your e-mail address, please make sure that you leave a unique name and check back with PRIZEY to see if you won. If the winner hasn’t responded within 3 days, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.
4. If you’d like extra entries, you can:

• Subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the orange icon in the upper right sidebar) or subscribe via e-mail – leave me a separate comment to let me know.
• Mention this contest on your blog with a link back to this post, and leave a separate comment with the link to your post so I can find it.
• Either Twitter about, ‘Digg’ or ‘Kirtsy’ this post – leave me a separate comment with your username at whichever site(s) you chose (one extra entry per method).
• Take my survey! Leave a comment to let me know. Even if you’ve previously taken it, just leave the comment and you’ll get the extra entry.

So that’s a total of 7 comments/entries if you do all of the extra entry options.

Good luck! 

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – the random number generator has chosen comment #25 as the winner:

Congratulations to maria, whose extra entry from taking the survey has won for her! I will be e-mailing you shortly to work out the details.

This post courtesy of: Mail4kids. No payment or compensation, other than product samples as described above, was received for this post.