article_snippet: , New York girl Nicole - who asked that she surname not be published - was given a school assignment to write to a pen pal, with an ad placed in different newspapers calling for people in other states interested in corresponding with the students.
article_snippet: Unwilling to be cut off from Nicole surrogate grandparents, Nicole traveled the 1,600 miles from New York to Bastrop, to finally meet The couple.
article_snippet: Nicole acknowledged that, with technology the way it is now, other children won't get to have an experience like Nicole did. '
article_snippet: The connections you make are way more important than anything you're going to learn in a book,' Nicole said.
highlights_snippet: It was a class assignment to correspond with a pen pal, but they kept going .
  
highlights_snippet: Nicole decided to travel the 1,600 miles to finally meet Parkinson's Disease .