From the Editor: Celebrate six months of printing with us on Jan. 10!

Hey folks!

It’s been a busy fall for us over at the Oxford Free Press. Since I last wrote, we’ve surpassed 250 individual donors and hit a milestone 300 stories published on our website, all since June. This week marks our 21st print edition already, and we’re nearing the end of our “Volume 1” issues, which are limited to 2024.

As we look toward the new year and what’s next for the Free Press, we’d like to invite you, our readers, to a reception celebrating six months of printing Jan. 10. The event will run from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. and feature light refreshments and remarks from myself, as well as members of our Board and others who have supported our mission to preserve local journalism in Oxford.

The reception will also be a chance to see where we work in the Lee and Rosemary Fisher Innovation College@Elm building, located at 20. S. Elm St.

As we move into the season of giving, there are several ways you can help us continue to provide local reporting on everything from city government to Talawanda news and features of local organizations.

First, donating is always an option. You can use this link to make a donation of any amount. Your donations go directly to our costs including staff, printing and website maintenance. You could also sign up for a monthly or yearly membership or sponsorship by heading to our website and clicking “Donate.” We accept checks by mail, too. Just make sure to send it to P.O. Box 857, Oxford, OH 45056, and include your email address so we can add you to the members-only mailing list.

Second, we could always use more help getting our papers into the hands of readers every Friday. Our team of volunteers, led by Bobbe Burke, makes sure that 1,500 papers get to the correct locations every week, but we’ll need extra help especially in the coming months as volunteers go on vacation and leave town. If you’re free at 11:30 a.m. or later on Fridays, shoot me an email at editor@oxfreepress.com to let me know you’re interested in helping us distribute our print editions.

Finally, you can help by writing for us or suggesting story ideas! I’m always on the lookout for letters to the editor and guest columns, which you can submit by following this link. One of the most essential functions we serve is as a place for community voices to be heard, and we can only fulfill that role with your help.

You can use that same link to submit story ideas, too. My reporters and I try to keep track of everything going on in and around Oxford, but we don’t know what we don’t know. If you think we’re missing something, tell us! We have a limited amount of time to cover the community, so some things do get passed over, but if you let us know what you want to read, we’ll have a better idea of how to make those decisions.

That’s all for now. I hope to see plenty of you at our Jan. 10 reception, or at my office hours Dec. 19 from 1-5 p.m. in Oxford Lane Library. Until then, I hope your holiday preparations go smoothly!

From the Editor,

Sean