Each April, I count my blessings.
Back in 2020, we were in the thick of finalizing our April issue when the world came to a screeching halt.
With a pandemic crashing down around us, our long-planned feature stories seemed trivial, at best. Our advertisers suddenly cancelled their ads. Our printer wanted to know if we’d even have an April issue.
I’ll never forget that horrible, sinking feeling when the governor issued his stay-at-home order. What would we do? Like everyone else, we winged it.
We quickly held a meeting and decided, as a staff, that we needed to publish an April issue, despite it all. We cut some stories, dropped a lot of ads, and then decided to publish primarily online, as most of our distribution locations had closed.
In short, it was the worst time of my long journalism career, as well as one of the worst times of my life. I honestly didn’t know if we’d be able to continue in business past that point.
Well, we’re still here—stronger than ever. And that’s why, each April, I count my blessings.
A big part of that blessing is you, our community of readers. To try to survive the pandemic, we accelerated the launch of our new membership program—Friends of TheBurg—and, wow, did you respond!
Because of you, we were able to continue to report, continue to write, continue to publish, continue to offer this news service to the greater Harrisburg area and beyond. I cannot express enough gratitude to our incredible readers and supporters.
Yes, April is the third anniversary of Friends of TheBurg. If you’re a friend, we hope you’ll renew your membership and, if you’re not one yet, we hope so much that you’ll join. Last year, we even felt safe enough to throw our first (and long-delayed) Friends of TheBurg “bash.” It was so successful that we plan to hold another one later this year, so please stay tuned for that.
More good news—winter is over (well, what there was of it, anyway), and spring is coming on strong. Happy April, everyone!
Lawrance Binda
Publisher/Editor
Click here to read the digital version of our April issue.
If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!
