Zip06.com
Thursday, November 21, 2024
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Dear Reader,
I love local news, and if you're reading this, you probably do too. Local journalism is an invaluable pillar of our communities. It's the voice that tells the stories of our friends and neighbors, celebrates our successes, and addresses our challenges. I love the ability of the news to inspire and inform, but also its ability to question and push for progress. Local journalism strengthens the bonds within our communities.
Supporting local journalism means supporting local businesses. Small businesses rely on local newspapers to connect with customers and advertise their services. When local journalism thrives, so does the local community and economy.
Our reporters are the storytellers and the recorders of our communities. Each week you can count on them to bring you news and content specific to where you live, including:
As you know, you receive this newspaper free of charge, and while it has always been our mission to deliver the news for free, it is a costly venture. Like many of our community members and local businesses, over the last few years, we have had to take a hard look at what delivering the news to you truly costs. There is a lot that goes into the production of your local newspaper: building expenses, technology, reporters, designers, sales staff, accounting staff, the cost of paper, printing, trucking, postage, and so much more. At the end of the day even I was a bit surprised by how much it costs to put a paper into each of your homes. Each paper costs almost $7.00 per week, per home.
We rely on advertising dollars and donations to fund our business.
In 2015, we created a Voluntary Pay program to help ensure that our organization could not only deliver local news and information each week, but also expand our resources so we could improve the coverage we offer to our readers and advertisers and continue to give back to the community we love so much.
Thanks to your generous donations, in 2023 we were able to support a number of non-profit organizations within the community by donating $48,947 worth of advertising space free of charge. You are likely familiar with many of these important community fixtures such as, Sarah, Habitat for Humanity, Warm the Children, and The Community Foundation of Middlesex County, to name a few. Readers' donations helped offset the cost of the advertising space we gave to these organizations so that they could publicize fundraising events to help generate additional funds for their own initiatives.
We were also able to continue our annual Beacon Awards where we recognize 15 volunteers in the community who help make the shoreline a wonderful place to live, work, and play. Each of these volunteers were nominated by their peers and the campaign culminated at a dinner and recognition ceremony in October.
We are grateful to each of our donors. You too can make a difference. If you see value in the product we provide each week, we ask that you consider contributing.
Whether you decide to donate this year or not, we will continue to mail your paper each week. It is our privilege and mission to continue providing local news, ads, and information through your free weekly paper and our website, Zip06.com.
If you're able to contribute to us, you will be supporting quality community journalism and a local company that's in the business of helping other local businesses at a time when it's most needed.
Thank you,
Louvenia Brandt
Associate Publisher
Shore Publishing
