Village News is here for you

While some small businesses are coping with the COVID-19 situation, restaurants are accommodating their customers with take-out, and we encourage you to continue to patronize these local businesses as well as others if possible. It will make a huge difference while small businesses are working on ways to stay in business and keep their employees. That’s one of the reasons we are taking time and assets to write about how local businesses are affected. We also remain here for you! Our role as a newspaper is to gather and disseminate factual information to you, our readers, especially during a crisis.

While we face uncertain times during this fight against COVID-19, Village News took a step back to reevaluate what our role would be and what the community needed from us to be able to prepare for the unprecedented response from our businesses, schools and our government. What we found was needed, more than anything else, was real, timely, valuable information.

Our role quickly evolved from that of a weekly newspaper and online news website to so much more. We stepped up our coverage and quickly became the go-to news and information source for you with our all-hands-on deck approach to covering COVID-19 24/7 from the local level all the way to the international stage utilizing http://www.villagenews.com and social media.

We worked 24 hours a day, as the situation worsened. We monitored and vetted hundreds of sources for our stories on everything from city and school closures to how our local businesses are wading their way through this unchartered territory. We wrote stories on cleaning and disinfecting your home, stories on closures of local entertainment venues and stories updating the latest information from public health, all with a staff of five writers and one photographer working nonstop over a four-day period.

I’m so proud of our staff and their hard work and dedication. Village News began to lead in coverage of the virus as it quickly evolved from a nuisance into something much larger. For 20 years we’ve been the main hub of information to keep the entire community updated as often as possible in the midst of decision making for families and action plans for businesses while facing an onslaught of closures and government mandates.

It is important to remember while we provide a public service, we are not funded in any way by any form of government, so we still depend on our advertisers and our subscribers to support our work. Financially, it is challenging to step up our coverage during uncertain times. We push on and deliver the news as only we can, quickly and accurately, with our heads held high and a story to share.

One way that the community can help us while we serve them is to support us with subscriptions. I can’t stress enough how important each subscription is for a locally owned newspaper and at $69 a year or $5.99 a month, it is an affordable way to join in partnership with us to ensure that we are able to continue bringing you the high quality breaking news and information you have come to expect from Village News, as well as our coverage acting as a watchdog for government and conveying the important work on nonprofits. For the cost of a cup of coffee a month, you support our staff, who live in the communities we cover.

Whether it be COVID-19, car accidents, wildfires or features on the people and places who make this place we call home such a great place to live, we are here for you. Your help is appreciated. Please visit http://www.villagenews.com and click on subscribe today.

Julie Reeder can be reached by email at [email protected].