Some are deployed.
Others are off at college or have left the area to begin careers and start families.
So, when we heard that there are Wayne County natives who were unable to pick up a hard copy of our latest edition of Eastbound & Downtown— but wanted access to the stories told inside its pages — we decided to release it online.
We did so to stay true to our mission of offering a new brand of journalism for free to our readers — and to thank our many advertisers for joining us on this journey.
And while we said it before several months after we launched our debut edition, it remains worth noting that your response to our product, and our sister website the New Old North, has been nothing short of overwhelming.
Thousands of local residents have picked up a copy of E&D— many of them, stopping us around town, posting to our social media pages and emailing us to offer feedback and suggest subjects of future stories.
And more than 74,000 unique visitors have found their way to NewOldNorth.com — hitting our site a staggering 4 million times since we launched early last year.
There, they have found timely news coverage, feature stories that warm the heart, vibrant photographs from high school sporting events and community events, and commentaries that seek to confront issues many in these parts have long avoided for fear the truth was just too controversial to address.
Our spring magazine will publish in a few months and you can expect more stories about the people who make Wayne County a special place to call home, told by new additions to our team who share our vision that quality journalism is critical to the success of a community.
And here on the New Old North site, you can rest assured that we will keep our eye on the issues that matter in the coming months — from significant elections and local politics to the state of our schools and those leaders who, some might say, have gone unchecked for far too long.
Those who wish to connect with our growing audience — from the hundreds of teenagers who follow us on social media and the tens of thousands more who frequent our site to the thousands, from all walks of life, who have taken home a copy of Eastbound & Downtown can email us at newoldnorth@gmail.com
For everyone else, we hope you enjoy this electronic version of “The Gift”:
