Friends,
Thanks for the amazing year. There's just too many people who work to make this online media outlet such a success that I'm going to skip trying to list them because I always forget people. So that being said, allow me to single out just a couple people without whom we wouldn't be here today.
1) Mark, Aaron, Ben, Christa, Nick, Noah, Chris, Clarence, Elizabeth, Tanya, Aaron B., Angie, and everyone at OpenPlans without whom their would be no Streetsblog and certainly no L.A. Streetsblog.
2) Joe, Carter, Deborah, Joel, Jocelyn, and James, the current Editorial Board of L.A. Streetsblog and Dana, Dorothy and Jessica for their past work on the Board.
3) Everyone that contributed time, money, stories to the website. A couple of notable donations include the reader who donated a car via Cars for Causes and Amanda Lipsey who has pledged to be our largest individual donor blasting past a couple of our Board Members and my Mom.
4) Michael, Paul and David at the David Bohnett Foundation who had the vision to support us in 2010 and 2011 before we had our fundraising organized enough to be self-supporting. Mary Lou at the California Endowment for sharing our vision of community based reporting in Boyle Heights and South L.A.
5) All of our advertisers, but especially Howard and Lisa at GEK-Law and Josef at Flying Pigeon L.A.
6) All the people that promote our stories on social media but especially Alex Thomspson, El Random Hero, Ted Rogers, and Carol at LACBC.
7) My wife who puts up with me writing until midnight most nights and saying things like, "Can you watch Sammy for an hour? Paul Backstrom left a message..."
And of course, everyone reading this has supported us in one way or another. I would be a negligent non-profit manager if I didn't make one last pitch for our end of the year fundraising drive and to remind you that all donations are tax deductible. Given all the good news we've had recently, you might not think your donation matters, but it really does. Funds from major donors are tied to specific projects, and we still need help to cover our day to day expenses.
Thanks again for everything, and we'll see you on January 3rd (or next Tuesday at the Library Alehouse for the LACBC fundraiser...)
All the Best,
Damien, Marybeth and Sammy
