By: The Ivanhoe Sol

On behalf of the team at The Ivanhoe Sol, thank you for yet another year of support. This issue marks our 4th Anniversary along a special journey in storytelling, community building, and learning what it takes to operate a newspaper.

The small communities of the Central Valley share many characteristics in common, a lack of community access to important information is among those. A vision to correct that was a part of the creation of the Ivanhoe Sol. The bilingual community newspaper is not subscription based, nor reliant on advertising to continue its mission to keep the residents of Ivanhoe informed of the issues that directly affect many of the people who call it home.

As many things that take time to develop, the Sol has found its voice become more clear as time marches on. It has now been four years since its conception, creation, and ongoing issuing; which is still developing more and more with every edition. The dedication of its citizen-writers is fueled by their passion for their community and their desire to improve the lives of its inhabitants by sharing the stories that they find important.

Beginning in the summer of 2019, the Listening Post Collective conducted surveys and workshops in the area. The studies concluded that, with the decline of local Spanish newspapers contributed to a lack of informed citizens, especially when concerning local issues. Starting in December of 2019, the Ivanhoe Community Council was awarded a $25,000 grant to meet the information needs of the Ivanhoe area. This led to the beginning of a partnership with The Sun- Gazette newspaper to distribute a regular newsletter to every household in the 92335 zip code. The Ivanhoe Sol covers many subjects that range from the absolute local, such as school events and programs as well as pedestrian safety, to the county level, up to the state level decisions that make their way down to the local level from water and air quality to weather response issues. Other topics covered by the Ivanhoe Sol include pesticide drifts, community development projects, and even feature arts and creative literature that is generated from within the community.

The Ivanhoe Sol’s success over the last four years is unequivocally the result of community support and its continued success shows the commitment of the resident citizen writers who live, love and work for continuous improvement to the community of Ivanhoe.

We look forward to another new year full of growth as we work towards the prosperity of beautiful Ivanhoe, California.

Sincerely,

The Ivanhoe Sol