I am more convinced than ever that the Beacon has a vital role to play in helping Andover maintain its strong sense of being not just a town, but a community.

The 21st century continues to fling unprecedented challenges at small rural communities everywhere. So all of our town’s organizations – the non-profits, our town departments and committees, our school system – struggle every day to keep our community whole by keeping our friends and neighbors engaged with each other and with all the opportunities Andover offers to learn and grow and participate in a vibrant community.

As Andover’s non-profit community newspaper, the Beacon plays a vital role in all of our town’s organizations ability to fulfill their respective missions. The Beacon is an important part of each organization’s ability to:
• drive attendance at community events
• explain its plans, goals, and challenges to the community
• catch the interest of friends and neighbors who might someday become committee members or volunteers

But perhaps most important of all, each issue of the Beacon shows everyone in town that they live in a special place that has a lot to offer them whenever they’re ready to participate. So in terms of helping Andover maintain its strong sense of being not just a town, but a community, I believe the cumulative impact of issue after issue of the Beacon is irreplaceable.

Please Donate in 2020

Sadly, our “free” non-profit community newspaper is anything but free. Ads cover some of our expenses … but less all the time (a problem that newspapers worldwide are facing). Community-minded businesses and organizations who underwrite the printing and mailing cost of one page in each issue cover that expense … thank you!

The rest of our expenses have to be made up every year with donations from the public. It’s not that we’d like to make up the rest of those expenses … no, we must make up those expenses, or long-term we simply can’t continue.

The worrying news is that total donations from the community for 2019 were down about 10% from 2018. Despite our having done two mailings to the community last year, just over 200 households made a donation to the Beacon in 2019.

I hope, for all the reasons at the beginning of this article, that donations to the Beacon in 2020 will be better. Thank you!