Community story told with calendar

Hannah Gross
NLJ Correspondent
 
The community calendar has been around longer than most people can remember, and after a brief hiatus the tradition was continued last year when the Lion’s Club partnered with the News Letter Journal to create this calendar for the community.
“It’s always been a fundraiser for the Lions Club,” said club member Leonard Nack. 
The calendar depicts the daily life of the local community by marking birthdays and anniversaries for community members, and last year began displaying pictures that “celebrate living in Newcastle and Weston County,” according to Bob Bonnar, publisher/editor of News Letter Journal.
“One of the jobs of the newspaper is to tell the community’s story,” said Bonnar.
While some work has been done to modernize the calendar, it still holds on to the traditional feel by being printed on glossy pages in an age when birthday and anniversary greetings have become less tangible as they are digitized through Facebook and other social media, Bonnar said.
Birthdays and anniversaries listed in the calendar are also printed in the News Letter Journal and read aloud on KASL radio.
The calendars can be purchased at the News Letter Journal office for $10 each. The price drops to $8 if the calendar is purchased from a Lions Club member. Birthday and anniversary listings cost $1 each, but six free listings come with the pre-order of a calendar. The deadline for calendar orders is Nov. 8, and Bonnar hopes calendars will be ready for distribution around Thanksgiving.
According to Bonnar, the calendars are of a high quality, with similar-quality calendars costing twice as much – calendars that he believes lack the Lions Club calendar’s unique, localized touch. The cost was kept low so more people could participate and enjoy them, he said. 
While the community calendar may be a simple project, it’s something that many people have enjoyed, and when it was not produced for a year, Bonnar said it was missed.
The calendar is a fun tradition for the community and provides a way for people to better know their neighbors, he said.
“My kids, when they were little, thought it was fun to hear their names on the radio,” said Kelly Arp, whose family has participated by purchasing listings on the calendar for years. “It makes everyone feel a little closer.”
Nack also noted how the calendar contributed to community bonding because it offers  “a sense of community,” and Bonnar agreed.
“Community is about being a part of something bigger than ourselves,” Bonnar said, as he compared being a community member to being a team member. The community calendar, he said, provides another outlet for people to be active members of the community.