Recently, a gentleman stopped by our office to offer his services as a volunteer.
It wasn’t the first time this has happened.
Over the years, many people have asked if they could help us out with everything from writing to proofreading to delivering—for free!
For the most part, we’ve declined these generous offers as we already have a solid team in place to handle the day-to-day, the week-to-week and the month-to-month. We simply don’t have extra duties that aren’t already being covered.
That said—we appreciate this kindness so much. It’s incredibly heartwarming to know that some folks love TheBurg to the extent that they want to donate their precious time to us.
The guy who dropped by last month mentioned another way that he’s helping, one that actually is very valuable to us. He said that he recently joined our membership program, Friends of TheBurg.
By coincidence, we just celebrated the second anniversary of our Friends program. We launched it in April 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, hoping that the generosity of our readers would help us make it through that time of crisis. The results are in—it did!
As of this writing, we have well over 400 Friends of TheBurg, people who have voluntarily forked over a little of their hard-earned money to ensure that we continue to offer, at no cost to the general community, our award-winning magazine, daily local news reporting, monthly podcast and local events.
People have asked me how we can provide all of this for free, as we have no subscription fee or paywall and, in fact, rarely charge for anything we offer. It’s because of the generosity of the central PA community—our community publishers, our sponsors and our Friends of TheBurg, in addition to our many loyal advertisers.
Thank you all so much! I think that we’ve (mostly) reached the other side of the pandemic, and we could not have done it without you. If you’d like to become a Friend of TheBurg, you just need to visit our website to join. As a thanks, we’ll send you a nifty tote bag, and you’ll receive invites for events that we’re starting to plan.
Otherwise, I hope that you enjoy the May issue, which is focused on area dining—one of our favorites topics. It’s finally warmed up around central PA. In my book, that makes it the perfect time to grab an outdoor table, order a fine cocktail and enjoy something tasty from one of our city’s fabulous restaurants.
Lawrance Binda
Co-Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!
