Journalism for the holidays

by David Forbes December 16, 2018

Gift subscriptions! Awesome stuff from great local places! A chance to keep local journalism fighting into the next year! All this and more as the Blade thanks our readers for their support

Yes readers, it’s that time of year again. The Blade relies on the support of our readers. We don’t have any ads, we don’t have any corporate backing. Every piece of news we publish, every view we bring to the forefront, every photo or piece of art we run is all paid for by our readers’ donations and subscriptions.

So during the holidays we like to say thank you while also ensuring that we’re on strong ground going into the next year. We’re offering three potential prizes for our wonderful readership.

1) A $50 bar tab at the Crow and Quill, a place of fine drinks and lovely people (and the only unionized bar in the state).

2) A $35 gift certificate to Firestorm, an amazing bookstore and radical community space. They’re the Blade’s go-to for many a volume in our library, and we can’t recommend them highly enough.

3) Two $50 gift certificates to Bouchon. Yes, that means two lucky readers will get to enjoy French comfort food and fine dining, on us.

So, how does one get entered into this drawing?

Just during this fund drive, we’re offering the opportunity to purchase gift subscriptions for someone for just $10 for the whole year.

Just make a one-time donation here, and specify who you’d like the gift subscription to go to. For every $10 you donate, we’ll give an annual subscription to someone of your choice. Also, for each $10 you donate we’ll also enter you to win one of the prizes above. That means that, yes, you can get entered multiple times for purchasing multiple subscriptions.

We’ll welcome the lucky recipient of a gift subscription and they’ll get all the perks, rewards and extra content our subscribers receive. This is a particularly good gift for a local in need or a news-devouring friend or family member.

You can also sign up as a monthly subscriber, for any amount, and we’ll enter you to win one of these prizes.

Already a subscriber? Thank you! If you raise your subscription — by any amount — you’ll also get a chance to win. If you double it or more (from $3 to $10, for example), we’ll give you two chances at one of the prizes.

You can also shoot us an email if you’d like to make a donation another way.

The drawing will take place at 7 p.m. Dec. 23.

The Blade wishes you all a happy holidays and hopes that you find community, support and comfort this winter. Thank you all. We started because Asheville’s people are wonderful, and deserve so much more. We have survived and thrived because of your help.

To a brave new year.

Forward,

David Forbes

Editor