Last week’s news brought the announcement of another small New England newspaper suspending operations. The daily Eagle Times of Claremont, N.H., is no more and a visit Tuesday took me to a suspended website, with no access to any of the paper’s online content.
That print newspaper circulated in New Hampshire and Vermont towns across the Connecticut River. It has been through mergers and a 2009 bankruptcy during which it stopped publishing for a time.
The Hardwick Gazette has been published continuously for 136 years, since 1889, without interruption, other than our traditional two-week vacation at the end of each year.
The 18 months since we became community-owned as a nonprofit have never been easy, with a steep learning curve. Funding the operation has been a challenge, except in our first six months when start-up funding from two generous donors gave us a bit of time to learn the ropes.
The second half of 2024 was financially difficult, but generous local donors contributed enough at the end of the year to let us catch up and enter 2025 in the black.
Six months into the year, we’re again looking for substantial donations of $30,000 to supplement the $30,000 in income we expect to receive from donor pledges, recurring monthly contributors and advertisers to meet our $120,000 annual budget; $10,000 each month and roughly $2,500 each week.
Our ability to cover more news and events has increased during these 18 months. Now, a further boost, through generous support from the Leahy Center and UVM, has allowed us to add half-time intern Alex Strand for the summer. She joins half-time reporter Raymonda Parchment, who started with us just over a year ago and has been on staff since January.
Our opinion pages have been thriving because you, our community, contribute to the open exchange of opinions we encourage.
We all continue doing this work because, like you, we know local news is critical to the health of our communities.
You help us help you by contributing news, events, photos and story leads to help fill The Gazette’s pages each week.
When I look back 100 years to find interesting news and ads for our Weeks Gone By section, I see the name of J.E. Appolt, who sat in the editor’s chair from 1905 to 1948, and feel a compelling need to continue this work, likely for much the same reason he did.
As The Hardwick Gazette’s summer fund drive launches this week, we ask you to make a generous contribution in any amount to see that its mission of being the first draft of history for our communities continues well into the future.
Paul Fixx, editor
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
