Asking for help is not the part of publishing the Wayland Post that comes naturally to us. But reporting the news is.
It’s going to meetings when few other people are in the room. It is reading the documents behind the agenda. It is asking another question when something does not quite add up. It’s covering the schools, town government, public safety, history, people and institutions that make Wayland a community. Then it’s putting all of that together and delivering a newspaper to thousands of homes.
That’s the work we would rather be talking about. But humility also requires telling the truth when the margin supporting that work has become too thin.
Our current working budget puts ordinary operating expenses at approximately $11,725 a month.
Those costs are not glamorous. They are the people who report, edit, design and produce the newspaper. They are printing and production. They are the applications, subscriptions, insurance, bookkeeping and technology that make the work possible. So we’re asking for your help.
Our goal: $35,000
We hope to raise $35,000 by the end of 2026 — approximately three months of ordinary operating expenses.
The economic model that supported community newspapers for generations has changed dramatically. Yet the need for someone to attend the meeting, read the filing, examine the budget, ask the question and put the answer into the public record has not disappeared.
A healthy community needs places where residents with very different opinions can at least begin with the same set of facts. It needs people watching what local government does when hardly anyone else is watching. It needs a record of the ordinary events that become a town’s history.
If the Wayland Post has helped you understand something happening in town, introduced you to a neighbor, explained an issue, preserved a piece of Wayland’s history or made local government a little easier to see, we hope you’ll consider making a contribution.
A gift of $25 or $50 matters. A gift of $100, $300 or $500 gives a small organization meaningful room to operate. And recurring gifts — even $10 or $25 a month — are especially valuable because predictable support lets us plan instead of react. If you’re able, we hope you’ll help us raise $35,000 and give the Wayland Post three months of breathing room. We’ll continue reporting on our progress, and we intend to be just as careful with the trust behind every donated dollar as we are with the facts we put into print.
Please make a one-time or monthly contribution at www.waylandpost.org/donate. And if you can’t give, please share this appeal with someone who may care.
Either way, thank you for reading us. Thank you for rooting for local journalism. And thank you for helping prove that a community can still decide that something small, independent and useful deserves the chance to endure.
