BY LUCIE KRISMAN
The Eudora Convention and Visitors Bureau voted Monday to donate $1,000 to support the Eudora Times.
CVB Co-President Elizabeth Knispel said the decision received strong support from all voting members. The donation came from money allocated for micro-grants, which are most often used for local events that need additional financial support.
Before becoming its own newspaper, the Eudora Times previously worked with the CVB providing social media coverage of community events. Knispel said because events have been put on hold for much of the year due to COVID-19, the CVB welcomed the chance for another purpose for the funding.
"We had that connection with the Eudora Times from the beginning," Knispel said. "I think it's extremely important to have coverage on the people and the activities and information in areas that you live, regardless of who is doing it. It's a very valuable resource."
CVB Vice President of Technology Kathy Weld said an important purpose of the CVB is keeping the community informed on what is to come in Eudora and the Eudora Times is helping to fulfill that purpose.
"I think it's really important for the story of Eudora to be told," Weld said. "As a smaller community that is kind of surrounded by a lot of larger communities, it's easy for our voice to be lost in the shuffle. It's really important to have local journalism that is specific to what we're experiencing in our community."
The CVB’s decision came after Publisher Teri Finneman wrote a column about the newspaper’s finances and indicated the newspaper may not make it past May.
The Eudora Times is staffed by Finneman, a KU journalism professor, and KU reporting students who operate the newspaper during the school year. The online newspaper launched in spring 2019.
Donations help pay for students’ gas money to go to Eudora and sporting events, to maintain the newspaper’s website, to provide the students with money for their work and to maintain membership in the Kansas Press Association as an official newspaper in Kansas.
Finneman said it’s important to her to be transparent about the newspaper’s funding. In addition to the CVB funding, the newspaper also received a pledge for a $5,000 donation from a Eudora family who wishes to remain anonymous but encourages others to help match it.
“My staff and I are so grateful that members of the community are stepping up to help save community journalism,” Finneman said. “Our team puts in so many unseen hours and has such big hopes for the future of our little online paper and our service to the community.”
The Eudora Times will also receive a donation from Jennifer Kassebaum, an alumna from the William Allen White School of Journalism.
Kassebaum studied broadcast journalism at KU as one of the Wooldridge scholars, a group of journalism students who received financial assistance in honor of Roger Wooldridge, a journalism student who died in a car accident in 1973.
She received a doctorate degree in law from KU as well and plans to open a bookstore soon in Council Grove, Kansas.
"I value local journalism a great deal," Kassebaum said. "I think it's wonderful to have a news source for local citizens to know what's going on with those public entities that are in their community.”
Finneman said the newspaper is still seeking donations to ensure the newspaper’s long-term future and is accepting advertising from businesses who would like to advertise.
“We’re only at the beginning of telling the stories in Eudora,” she said. “It’s a win-win to serve the community and to provide KU’s reporting students with real world experience in local journalism.”
To donate to support our community journalism, please go to this link: tinyurl.com/y4u7stxj