News : Vinton Today says Thank You and Sends a Reminder

First of all, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to those of you who have already sent in a donation to Vinton Today for our annual fundraiser. Each year, I always cringe when it comes time to ask you to send in a little of your hard earned money to support the website. This year is a bit different. In the last year we have upgraded our website to a newer technology, eliminating the fear of a crash due to old code. It used to be that we had a guy on staff at Monkeytown that could drop what he was doing to tinker with the site if something happened. Now that we're on a new site, we contact our website designers, who have been excellent to work with I might add...every time there is a problem but nowthe service calls tend to add up. Just like you pay the plumber when they show up, we are now adding the expense of calling our repair guy. That's an added expense that we had been fortunate up until now to not have to worry too much about. But, that is where we need you. Each year we have used the fundraiser in whichever direction we felt that it was needed. Usually a part of it goes for equipment, hosting fees, email fees, and any other expenses that I'm forgetting. Usually once a year we discuss whether we want to pull in other advertising so that we don't have to ask you for donations, but every year, we come to the conclusion that we'd rather ask our readers to support this effort, than to ask some big corporation to chip in. Every year, the kind folks that read this website, send in what they can, and you always make it enough to keep the extra expenses covered. Dean and I are humbled by your kindness and generosity each year. This year has been a bit different for us, and we'll share a bit about that later I'm sure. But in this journey, there has been the one constant, the support of our wonderful community. We found pretty quickly that our "community" was made up of readers that live here, used to live here and occasionally someone who is thinking about moving here. We've made many email acquaintances who have shared their memories of Vinton, and for a gal that loves to hear stories about "back then" it's a bit like Christmas when a reader finds our email address and we start corresponding. Many times, they have lived here before us, but remember Vinton fondly. It's nice to be that voice "from home" for them. We have found that when searching online to find information about Vinton, we are usually the site people read. We didn't have a clue 7 years ago, all this site would become. Even today, it blows our mind when we see the numbers at the top of the page that tell us that over 23 MILLION clicks have been made on our site! We've been blessed. That's the only way to sum this up. For whatever reason, we're here, doing what we do, still loving what we do, and proud to give Vinton a spot on the internet "map". We are asking you again, to take a minute and consider how you can help to support this site. Thank you for your help! Here's a link to make it easier to find the information for donating! (If you'd rather drop a donation off in person, pop into Monkeytown, located on the west side of the courthouse in Vinton, and the great folks there will be happy to collect your donation for Vinton Today.)