Today we are all thankful for the generosity of contributors to our summer fund raising effort that ended Sunday.
We’re still rounding up details, thanking people and waiting for mailed donations, but even with a full accounting yet to be, we are grateful for the roughly 100 people who helped match the $5,000 in gifts that helped to double each individual contribution.
And, we’re especially grateful for those who have chosen to become monthly donors. While those gifts don’t help our immediate needs, they build a foundation upon which we can look to the future and budget accordingly.
Our final appeal last Sunday, motivated at least 30 of you to join the hundreds of other Gazette supporters in making your donation to what we know is a most important endeavor for our communities.
Running The Hardwick Gazette as a bare-bones operation, with staff and volunteers who go well beyond what might be expected of them, to create what you see on your screen each edition, is a minor miracle.
It costs us roughly $10,000 a month to keep The Gazette going. Most of that, about $7,000, goes to four staff members: two long-time production people, the half-time reporter who came on board in January and a part-time bookkeeper who joined us during the summer. Some goes to our independent contractors who share photographs, columns and sometimes write news stories. That’s another $2,000 each month. The remaining $1,000 goes mostly for the technology and software that lets us put together the weekly Gazette, host it on the web and keep track of who is supposed to get it.
So, know that the bulk of your contributions combine with income from our advertisers to support members of our local community for their groceries, car payments, tax bills, winter fuel and firewood, student loans, car repairs, medical bills and helps them provide help to family members.
Then, a not insignificant monthly amount goes to pay for printer supplies: ink and paper, for the few copies we print that go to libraries in Hardwick, Greensboro, Cabot, Craftsbury, Walden, Woodbury and Wolcott; and to a few businesses where people are likely to sit and read it: Front Seat Coffee, The Village Restaurant, The Civic Standard, Nikki the Barber and Clip Joint, Vittles, Buffalo Mountain Market and the Hardwick Town Office that shares their copy with the senior center.
With all that said, know that your funding multiplies itself by helping us document the past, present and future of our 11 communities, then returns to help people live here and support the local economy.
Paul Fixx, editor
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
