In October last year, Ethan (aka Ebot) took part in a Postcrossing meeting in his hometown of Tampa, Florida, his first time attending one. The postcrossers there were charmed by this young postcrossers’s curiosity about the world, geography and stamps, and his enthusiasm for postcards! They suggested we interviewed him on the blog, so here he is, to tell us all about his favorite postcard, and the green initiative that he started together with his brother some years ago!
- How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
I came across Postcrossing as I was searching for pen pals a few years ago. After I looked into it a bit, I was instantly hooked because the thought of sending and receiving postcards from all over the world blew my mind!
- Do you have any other interesting hobbies?
My favorite hobby is playing drums. I’ve been doing it for about 6 years and recently got my own electric drum set which I practice on almost every day!
Ebot’s new drumset - Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your post office or the place where you post or keep your postcards!
I store most of the postcards I’ve received in special cardboard boxes I created myself out of shipping boxes.
Repurposed USPS box - Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.
My favorite postcard I’ve received during my time on Postcrossing is a card from a postal museum in Hungary. The front of the card is amazing with all the vintage postal contraptions and there is a spectacular moon landing themed stamp on the back!
Hungarian postal-themed postcard 
Moon landing stamp - Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?
I was surprised to get an amazing card from Kazakhstan after 63 days!
Postcard KZ-46593, from Kazakhstan - Have you met any other members in real life?
Yes! I’ve been able to go to two Postcrossing meetup events in my area. One was in October 2019, and the other in January 2020. Both of the events were very fun and I even designed a meetup card for one of them!
- Is there anything that you are passionate about?
My brother and I started our environmental organization called “Green Gasparilla”, about 5 years ago. The Gasparilla Parade occurs every January in Tampa. It is a mock pirate evasion where one main pirate ship and a few thousand other boats pass through the channel throwing cheap plastic strands of beads over the water to people on shore. As you can imagine, not everyone has perfect aim and over 50% of the beads land in the water and sink to the bottom. The goal of our organization is to combat this very harmful pollution, by stopping it and holding diver cleanups.
In the past few years, we have held 3 diver cleanup events with over 30 divers each time. Also, within the past year we have been able to work with the mayor of Tampa to create a campaign called “Bead Free Bay” to educate citizens of Tampa on the proper way to safely celebrate the parade without throwing beads over the water. We even created a PSA video that was posted all over the city’s social media.
Our work is definitely not done, but we have made lots of progress. I hope that this inspires people to speak up and do something if our ecosystem is being exploited in their community.
34 comments so far
Wonderful story. Well done, Ethan 👏👏👏😃😃😃
I ❤❤❤ Postcrossing!
İncredible story. 😀👏👏👏
Super!
Way to make the world better, Ethan! 🐬
Kudos to your commitment to the environment, you humble me.
This is amazing!! Way to go keeping the sea clean!
Way to go, Ethan! Keeping America beautiful :). You are an inspiration!
Ethan - with your knowledge you will go far in life! Am proud of you for this hobby and your outlook.
Thanks for caring about our earth, Ethan! The world needs more like you!
Nice story well done Ethan keep on going for a better and cleaner Planet. Ciao from Italy.
Ethan, amazing and may you keep discovering :).
Team, what a lovely story to read!
Lovely story, hope you achieve more in the future.
Great story! So inspiring to read about your fantastic work!
Ethan and your team, I love you and Thank You!
Great story Ethan! Also I love anything to do with the moon landing.
Educating Pirates on Environment. That's hard. Respect. Thanks for the nice story.
I love the amount of passion you show for things you love. Percussion, or making music in general, banning pollution and Postcrossing are all definitely worthy of it.
Thanks for the environmental work, we all benefit from it.
Great story & well done Ethan!
Good luck / Succes!
Such a great story. I applaud you for standing up to pollution in the bay. Thank you for your hard work from your neighbor across the gulf in Texas!
Great interview - well done Ethan.
Let's all consider how we can make this planet a better place.
Plant a flower, a bush, a tree today :-)
Hi Ethan
I enjoyed your interview and I hope we can stand up to pollution the same way. The way you do, with the big pirade seems fun and cool!
Great story!
I know Ethan from our Tampa postcrossing meetup, and you couldn't have chosen a better subject for an interview. I hope that young postcrossers worldwide will read this blog post and be inspired by Ethan and his environmental concern and action. I'm glad to share the planet with him.
Well done, Ethan! Please keep your environmental interest, the world needs more people like you.
Loved the hungarian museum postcard too!
Keep up the great work Ethan! See you next time fellow postcrosser!
Yes, Ethan's a bright boy. Plus, another cool thing I remembered is he's homeschooled anyway, so no worries about going back to school next month.
Well done Ethan - keep going! It is unbelievable that people are still so thoughtless to throw plastic into the sea! Maybe one could order beads made from maize starch which dissolve in water, so that people still are able to live their traditions?
2 years ago I went on holiday to the North sea and at the campsite they had as a protest action against plastic pollution in the sea with free! postcards showing photos of plastic at the beach like this
https://www.postcrossing.com/postcards/DE-8854832
https://www.postcrossing.com/postcards/DE-8163759
I thought for people who are into postcrossing and environmental protection this was a perfect idea! Maby people are eager to copy somewhere in the world.
Thank you for nice story
It's an interesting initiative worthy to spread around to increase environmental awareness. Being a Primary teacher, I will share your story with my pupils in Madrid, Spain. Thanks for your great work!
Thanks for sharing this stunning story!
You're awesome Ethan! Also, the repurposed boxes to store postcards in is a great idea. We've got so many boxes saved waiting to be used for something and this is a clever way to do it!!
Ethan, your story is inspirational. You were able to come up with a fun way to help the environment and educate others.
Thank you to all for the kind comments! Go Postcrossing!
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