I moved to Kent over five years ago. After moving around every two to six months for nearly three years, I wasn’t expecting to stay as long as I have. This place has a way of doing that. I am lucky to have put roots down in Kent.
One of the things that keeps me rooted—and I sincerely mean this—is knowing what’s happening. Who’s running for first selectman. What the Planning and Zoning Commission is thinking about that parcel next to Town Hall. Whether the school board is following through on what they promised. What events my children will enjoy attending.
That kind of knowing is the kind that makes you feel like a real participant in a place, not just a resident of it.
The Kent Dispatch does that for me. I suspect it does that for you too, or you wouldn’t be reading this.
Here’s what I want you to know: we are a small, scrappy, genuinely independent nonprofit newsroom. We have no corporate owner, no hedge fund, no algorithm deciding what gets covered. We have a couple of dedicated journalists, a modest budget, and a tiny board of volunteers who believe that this community deserves real local news.
Today, on Local News Day, I’m writing to all our readers to let you know that we need a few more of those volunteers.
We’re looking for people to join our board of directors—specifically people with backgrounds in finance and accounting, fundraising and development, and organizational leadership. You don’t need to be an old-timer in Kent. You don’t need a journalism background.
You just need to care about Kent, be willing to show up, and be willing to put your skills to work.
Last October, I spoke on a panel at the national Radically Rural conference in Keene, New Hampshire. The panel included four community journalists who do not have journalism degrees and did not have experience in journalism before coming to, or in some cases, creating, their newsrooms.
I talked to the 70-or-so journalists and publishers assembled about how my experience as an occupational therapist for the last 11-plus years has shaped how I see my role as a problem solver. In my profession, I ask my clients, “What is it that you need to be able to do, that you can’t do right now?”
I use that same curious mindset in my volunteer position as well. When I moved to Kent in 2020, I realized there was no singular source for news. So in 2022, I helped start this nonprofit newsroom with three other locals.
In Keene last fall, I joked, “I drank the Kent Kool-aid. I am all-in on Kent.”
I am proud to be a joiner and an includer and serve my community. I hope you will join me, too.
When you join the board of directors, it is not in a ceremonial role. We’re at a real moment in this organization’s life—one where the decisions we make in the next year will shape whether the Kent Dispatch grows into something more durable, or stays smaller than it should be. We have a solid foundation. We have readers who trust us. We have enough financial runway to be strategic. What we need is more of the right people around the table.
If that is you, I’d love to talk. Not a formal application, just a conversation. Drop us a note at board@kentgtd.org—it comes straight to the board, and someone will be back to you quickly.
Thank you for reading the Dispatch. Thank you for trusting us. And thank you, in advance, to the people who raise their hands.
Andrea Schoeny is Board President of Kent News, Inc., the nonprofit publisher of The Kent Dispatch.
