Thanksgiving is nearly here, and Lebanon County is ready to celebrate.
It’s a time to reflect with our families, our loved ones – what are we thankful for?
For me, the answer is simple. I’m thankful for my family, my girlfriend, my loving dog (Doc). But I’m also thankful for you.
You, a reader of LebTown. You, someone who cares about the future of Lebanon County. You, a person who makes a difference by visiting this website.
I am immensely proud of being from Lebanon County. I believe that there are lessons here — instruction we can take from the Pennsylvania Dutch culture, inspiration we can receive from knowing our county and our country are changing, wisdom we can learn from knowing that Lebanon County was once mighty and could be again in the future.
I am thankful to be running a publication that is advertiser-supported and member-driven. LebTown exists because you want it around. We make it our mission every day to deliver value to the community by producing independent, fact-based journalism, underwritten by our sponsors and informed by our members. We encourage you to support the businesses that support us – there are countless ways to spend advertising dollars, but few that make as big an impact as advertising on LebTown. Delivering value to them helps us bring you more community-sustaining news and information.
I am grateful to be working with a bright, motivated, and engaged team of reporters and freelancers who do this work because they believe in the mission. I am humbled by being able to pay them to do so, because at the end of the day my single biggest goal is creating a business that can sustain good journalism jobs for the community. We need to do it for ourselves, because history has shown that corporate media won’t do it for us.
I am thankful to have found partners in the community who recognized our mission and figured out ways to help – David Warner, who identified himself to us last year and acted as a seed investor to get Lebanon Publishing Company up and running; Karen Groh of the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce, the first advertiser on LebTown and a ceaseless advocate for sustaining local news in Lebanon County; Chris Coyle, a reader turned member turned reporter who has bought into our vision and proven himself to be one of the most intrepid journalists in Lebanon County.
Other LebTown staff members I want to recognize: Matt Reigle, who has worn many hats for the organization and contributed immensely to the project; Joshua Groh, whose talent at sharing the history of Lebanon County has made us a better community; Emily Bixler, who is on track to be a career journalist and chose to work with LebTown as a place to get her journey started. I am also thankful for Garry Lenton, who spent some time working with LebTown this summer and contributed to the groundwork of what we see as a mission to build a company that could last 100 years.
We owe a bunch to our loyal freelancers as well, people whose bylines you doubtless recognize and love: Jeff Falk, MaryLouise Sholly, Greg Lyons, Will Trostel, Barb West, Tom Knapp, Kira Schlechter, Ashley Walter, Rochelle Shenk, Annette Damato, and Tony Abraham.
LebTown will be taking the next couple of days off – we don’t plan to publish any posts Thursday or Friday, and if we do, it will only be because of breaking news that we think needs to get out there.
Thank you for reading LebTown. We’ll see you in a few days.
You can make a difference for LebTown.
If you are thankful for what LebTown brings to the community, consider joining our cause as a member. Members get an inside look at our publishing schedule each week, plus invites to our members-only Facebook group and happy hours.
Sign up for an annual membership using the link below, and we’ll give you a free LebTown mug at the next happy hour.
Learn more and join now here.
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