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Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Lake Report’s ‘Pandemic Heroes’ and ‘Shop Local’ projectswin$1,000 in Meridian contest

It’s not every day newspapers are recognized for the hard work they do to keep a community informed, provide stories about local people and contribute to documenting the history of their communities.

But this week, The Lake Report was honoured with a special prize for two of its special initiatives during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Lake Report was one of nine finalists in Meridian Credit Union’s small business contest. The contest nominees had to show “resilience, innovation and community spirit” in the face of the pandemic.

Through the pandemic, The Lake Report embarked on two particular projects to help our community through the pandemic — a 15-week series of full-page advertising features that profiled NOTL’s “Pandemic Heroes” and a 10-week, full-page feature called “Shop Local,” which highlighted four NOTL small businesses each week to encourage people to shop locally.

Both projects also included advertising support from community businesses that co-sponsored the pages.

“The inspiration, gratitude and pride we felt reading all the nominations is truly immeasurable,” said Joel Ayotte, a senior campaign strategist for Meridian.

The Lake Report’s team would like to acknowledge that our success was really a reflection of the community spirit in NOTL, said owner and editor Richard Harley.

“When NOTL businesses started shutting down due to COVID, we saw first-hand the effect it was having on them, and us through association as our business relies directly on advertising,” Harley said.

“So in true NOTL fashion, we did what we thought any of those businesses would do for us. We used our platform to make a call to residents to shop locally, and offered free business advertorials to any interested businesses. The result was a series that featured 40 of NOTL’s fantastic businesses. So while it feels great to be recognized for our efforts, we must also thank our readers, our advertisers and all of NOTL’s pandemic heroes, too.”

As a finalist, the newspaper receives a $1,000 cash prize from Meridian. As well, a short write-up about The Lake Report’s submission has been posted on Meridian's website at meridiancu.ca/business-banking/meet-the-small-business-contest-finalists.

It says: “Over 50 local papers across Canada have closed since the pandemic began. Their reliance on advertising from local businesses has decimated their revenue, leaving many communities without a reliable source for local news. When it seemed like all news was bad news, though, The Lake Report created its own good news.”

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