You, dear readers, have brought joy to all of us who are involved with The Hardwick Gazette as our Giving Tuesday campaign winds down and funds keep arriving.
We had received 101 donations totaling just over $11,000 by last Wednesday evening, Dec. 4, the day after Giving Tuesday.
In the week since, we’ve seen quite a few more donations come in for at least $3,000. I’m confident we’ll have received $15,000 by the time the last checks trickle in.
Close to 20 people have set up recurring monthly support ranging from $5 to $20. Those help us immensely by building a base income we know we can count on throughout the year.
We’ve now received donations from the Fidelity and Raymond James charitable organizations and appear on their searchable lists for clients to see.
We are excited that a family foundation in Hardwick, creating a list of nonprofit news organizations in Vermont, contacted us last week for information to be added to their list of qualified recipients.
We’re happy to work with other investment firms, donor-advised funds and trusts to make arrangements for receiving donations and bequests.
The board’s goal of $20,000 for Giving Tuesday seemed almost unreachable when we set it. It is what we needed to wind up this year and begin the new one with a bit of a cushion, so ask we did. What we’ve received so far will allow us to successfully end this year on track with the $120,000 we budgeted for last December.
The incredible show of support we’ve seen, with your average gift of over $100, impresses us that many of you answered our call to offer support even for those who can’t afford the full $65 annual cost to deliver The Gazette.
While we don’t know each of our readers personally, we do know that now we can continue to offer the paper to those who may not be able to afford it, for whatever reason. Some who need work can now read our paper even if they can’t afford to make a donation. They can read our ads to learn what companies are hiring or just to stay engaged during periods of transition.
We feel connected with readers as we create each week’s paper because we do that work with you and how you will read it foremost in our thoughts.
That connection doesn’t have to be only one-way. We hope you will contact us to tell us what our work means to you, what you might like to see differently, how you’d like to contribute content or send a letter to the editor.
Your support now gives us a fantastic story to tell about the community support we have as we begin to reach out to larger donors, corporate and other philanthropic organizations.
Whether you have shared financial support this year, or not, the next thing you can do is tell your friends, relatives and everyone else you interact with that The Gazette is still publishing and getting better every day.
Again, thank you, and know, in 2025 we will still be here doing the important work of keeping you informed about activities of all kinds in the spot of Vermont surrounding Hardwick.
What we do next will depend on your support as the board makes plans and budgets for next year.
Paul Fix, editor
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
