Five issues. One month down, and many more to go. And every bit of it - every article, every section, every inbox we land in on a Thursday morning - exists because you decided it was worth supporting. I don't take that lightly, and I wrote this letter to let you know.
I want to be specific about what your support has bought so far. Since we launched on June 25, our small, volunteer-run team has published more than 65 articles across our sections: News, Government & Civic, Arts & Culture, Environment, Beach Buzz, Sports, Dear Neighbor, and Opinion. Dear Neighbor is where our local nonprofits tell you about their community events, so you know where to show up and support them. The Opinions section is where your letters and guest columns live, giving you a place to argue, praise, or vent about what's happening in your own zip code. If you've written one, genuinely thank you. If you haven't yet, the page is there for you.
Right now, over 580 of you get Beach Gazette delivered to your inbox every week, and we've had more than 5,500 unique people read us since we started. For a five-week-old, volunteer-run outlet with no ad sales team and no institutional backer, those numbers still stop me in my tracks. They are the numbers of a community that decided local news was worth showing up for, and I'm grateful for every single one of you who did.
We're not stopping at what you see today. Over the next couple of months, we're working on including death notices and obituaries, because a community paper should be the place that marks when we lose one of our own, not just when a new roundabout gets approved. We are also working on incorporating a Law and Order section, because local journalism means covering the parts of civic life that are harder to cover, not just the ones that are easy to celebrate.
So you know, let me be clear about where we are: right now, Jennifer, our senior reporter Liza, and I are all doing this on top of full-time jobs elsewhere. It's a genuine labor of love, and it has worked because of you. Advertising and sponsorships will begin in earnest in a couple of weeks, and when they do, that revenue is earmarked for one thing: paying our reporters for the work they're already doing on nights and weekends.
But there's something more immediate I want to put in front of you first. We still have slots open in our Founding 50. This is a distinction for our first fifty founding patrons who invested a minimum gift of $1,000. They become part of the permanent record of how this paper got its start. It's not a large list, and it won't stay open long. If you've been waiting for the moment to make a bigger commitment to local news at the Beaches, this is it, and we'd be grateful to add you name.
It is only because of supporters like you that we are publishing our 5th issue. Because you believed a nonprofit news outlet dedicated to the Beaches was worth funding. Every one of those donations, at every level, is why this exists at all.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for writing in. Thank you for supporting local news. Thank you for believing in something before it had proven itself, and for sticking with us as it does.
We'll see you next week.
— Georgette Dumont
Founding Publisher, Beach Gazette
email: publisher@beachgazette.org
