Another big week of news this past week meant another very busy week for us here at East Cobb News reporting on all of that for you.

We featured a loaded end-of-school-year package on everything from the new budget, graduation ceremonies, principal reassignments, vals and sals to the superintendent’s charged remarks about apartments that drew a lot of response.

We also broke the news of an Einstein Bros. bagel shop coming here soon—our readers love restaurant news!—and a real-time update about the long-term Lower Roswell Road traffic project that is already becoming a headache.

Judging from our traffic and engagement numbers, we’re giving you exactly what you come to East Cobb News to find out.

Please contribute today!

It’s local news that matters and we know how much this matters to you!

And as we noted last week, we’re seeking more financial support from readers, and we’re appreciative of those who have donated.

But after a few months of strong support earlier this year, we’re not getting that now. We don’t know if we can keep giving you this news for free.

This isn’t a step we’re taking lightly, and we don’t want to do it. We want local news to be accessible to all, but we’re considering some options to charge for access.

And as the school year ends and the summer begins, we’d like to ask you to take a moment today to consider making a donation if you haven’t already.

We’re suggesting a $6 monthly recurring donation as part of our 1500 Club plan to boost reader support. You can donate more if you like, but we think that’s a reasonable ask.

We know money can be tight and people are busy with their lives, but we remain hard at work no matter the time of year. The summer can be really busy, news-wise, and we’re not going to slow down if it does.

But readers love what we do! They tell us so! When we have good meaty news weeks like the last two, we get more newsletter subscribers and we have plenty of comment threads going on about some of these stories.

Help keep East Cobb News free—please donate today!

But we need readers to do more than just tell us what they like about East Cobb News. Here’s the time to show us that appreciation!

We have just a few dozen supporters, and we want to get to 1,500. That sounds like a high bar, but that 1,500 number is only a fraction of our newsletter subscribers, and an even smaller number of our overall readership.

I’m very proud of what we’ve built up here, from scratch, when so many news outlets have more name recognition and resources.

The truth is many news outlets rely on reader support to fund significant aspects of their news and business operations.

Soon I’ll be detailing how we use the contributions we receive from you, and to offer you incentives to contribute.

I’ve been doing a goodness-of-my-heart ask for a few months now, and it’s clearly not working. I blame myself for not being more proactive sooner about soliciting reader support. I haven’t been good at explaining what it takes to sustain a news site like this.

There is nowhere else to get this kind of news coverage, but we need your help. East Cobb News is community-driven, devoted to the people who live and work here, and who contribute to our daily lives.

For nearly eight years now, we’ve been giving you the local news you love, but we can’t sustain this on love alone. We’re not just a news source, but a small business. We keep our expenses to a minimum, but we do have costs, and some of them are rising.

If you have donated, thanks! If you haven’t and are ready to do so now, please click below. Our Press Patron platform is safe and secure and easy to use.

I wish for you all to have a great Memorial Day holiday weekend and a start to your summer, and we’ll come back with more details in June about how you can support East Cobb News.

Let us know what you think about all of this: e-mail me at wendy@eastcobbnews.com. I’m interested in hearing from you.

Thank you for your support of East Cobb News!

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