by Peter Weinberger | pweinberger@claremont-courier.com

My father once told me you really get to know someone not when times are good, but during times of challenge. That’s certainly the case with the COURIER, as readers continue to subscribe, advertise and donate in support of our local news coverage. It’s been quite telling to see the depth in which supporters choose to help.

On Wednesday, we received three checks from readers who were paying for subscriptions. Receiving subscription payments each day is quite normal, given the thousands of readers who still write checks and send them via snail mail. But on this day, these subscribers added between $25 to $100 to their payments to help support our efforts. No one asked or marketed anything. I see this as support straight from the heart.

But it didn’t stop there. Other donations we received were from people all over the country, simply wanting to support local news providers. We don’t even know how they found us.

Last week, a subscriber actually wrote me a check personally, which literally has never happened before. These gestures show the trust the COURIER has developed with readers over the years; we are truly humbled.

These acts of generosity have not gone unnoticed by the COURIER staff, who have worked tirelessly the past three months to bring important news to all of you. I’ll be the first to confess it’s been an enormous challenge to stay on top of news, especially when you live, work and breathe everything coronavirus related. Now with Black the Lives Matter protests, the news just keeps on coming. All this makes me think of our first responders, who are under enormous pressure to serve.

Reporting news in a time of crisis only solidifies our commitment to serve the Claremont community. It’s why we got into this business, knowing it’s possible to make a difference.

Big news for the COURIER

A couple of months ago we started the process of becoming a nonprofit. We will use a model first established by the Salt Lake City Tribune, a small daily newspaper in Utah that launched a nonprofit arm in 2018.

The nonprofit side of the COURIER will work in tandem with the profit side, giving us flexibility to accept grants, tax deductible donations and more. This two-for-one concept is now popular with businesses all over the country, including Claremont.

We will establish the Claremont COURIER Charity, run by myself and my wife, Betsy Weinberger, who will help identify new ways we can support Claremont, especially nonprofits and the business community.

Our website, claremont-courier.com, will receive a huge upgrade to help focus our online efforts in a variety of new ways. We have teamed up with Culture Cube, a Claremont digital marketing design company, owned by longtime resident Jay Griffin. Mr. Griffin will also sit on the charity’s board of directors. Please keep in mind a for-profit COURIER will still exist, which is a critical component to making all of this work.

It will take some time before any of this comes to fruition, but the process has started and I’m excited to see what is possible with the new model. Much more will be revealed later, but our mission will always remain the same—to bring Claremont news to light and to educate readers about complex issues in the community.

Once again, I want to thank all of you who have supported and continue to support the COURIER. My parents Martin and Janis are smiling down at us right now. And that’s always a good thing.