Editorial: Happy New Year, Keep in Touch
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Editorial: Happy New Year, Keep in Touch

Reflecting and reinforcing the sense of community.

As a local, weekly newspaper, the Gazette Packet’s mission is to bring the news you need about your community, to give you the information you need to enjoy the best things in and near your community, to advocate for community good, to call attention to unmet needs, to provide a forum for dialogue on local concerns, and to celebrate and record milestones and events in community and people’s lives.

To succeed at any of that, we need your help.

If you know of a person or an organization doing important work, something that might make a good feature story, let us know. We want to know if someone in your family or your community published a book, became an Eagle Scout, raised money for a good cause, accomplished a feat like running a marathon or having an art show. Send us a photo and tell us about it.

We publish photos and notes of a variety of personal milestones and community events, including births, engagements, weddings, anniversaries, awards and obituaries.

We are also interested in events at your church, mosque, synagogue, community center, pool, school, club, etc. E-mail us a photo and a note about the event. Be sure to include the names of all the people who are in a photo, and say when and where the photo was taken.

We also publish notes about news and events from local businesses. Notes about openings, new employees, anniversaries are welcome.

To have an event included in our calendars, we appreciate getting notice at least two weeks ahead of the event, and we encourage photos. Events for our calendars should be free or at nominal cost and open to the public.

In covering the issues, we strive to provide a voice for our readers. We look forward to hearing from you.

The Gazette Packet is published by Local Media Connection LLC, an independent, locally owned company. The publications and websites include the Alexandria Gazette Packet, the Mount Vernon Gazette, two editions of the Centre View, the Potomac Almanac and individual Connection papers and websites serving McLean, Great Falls, Vienna/Oakton, Oak Hill/Herndon, Reston, Springfield, Burke, Fairfax, Fairfax Station/Clifton/Lorton, Arlington, Centreville, Chantilly/Fair Oaks, Alexandria and Mount Vernon.

The publications and websites have won hundreds of awards for news and community coverage just in the past few years, including the Virginia Press Association Award for Integrity and Community Service last year.

The operation of these community-serving publications is entirely funded by advertising. The papers are delivered free to homes and businesses throughout Northern Virginia, and through free digital replica subscriptions. If you or your organization appreciate the Connection’s publications, please support them by patronizing our advertisers and by spending a portion of your marketing budget with us.

Visit our website, www.connectionnewspapers.com and click on “contact us” for quick forms for:

Free digital subscriptions to one or more of our 15 papers: connectionnewspapers.com/subscribe

Submit a letter to the editor at http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/contact/letter

We provide educational internships all year; apply at http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/internships/

For information on advertising, email sales@connectionnewspapers.com, or see http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/contact/advertising/

— Mary Kimm, mkimm@connectionnewspapers.com