Why The Citizen Stands With Our Nonprofits — All of Them

Since taking over The Citizen, I have had a simple goal when it comes to our local nonprofits: I want us to partner with every one we reasonably can.

Not just cover them. Partner with them.

Supporting nonprofits is not something I started doing when I took over The Citizen. It is how my life in Georgia began. Straight out of college, I moved here to join Operation Mobilization in Tyrone, a global Christian missions organization, where I volunteered in public relations and communications. I even had to raise my own financial support to do the work. My first three years in Georgia were spent working entirely in the nonprofit world.

Now that I’m running The Citizen, we have provided media sponsorships for organizations and events benefiting Harts of Teal, which supports women facing ovarian cancer; Bloom, which serves foster children across Georgia; RiverLife, whose volunteers build wheelchair ramps, clean yards, and make minor home repairs for people who are elderly, disabled, or struggling financially; and so many others.

There are literally dozens of nonprofits whose work has been promoted on the pages of The Citizen.

Frequently, that partnership looks like this: We provide press coverage, promotion, or other media support. In exchange, the organization puts The Citizen logo on its programs, signs, website, or social media.

It isn’t an endorsement of every belief held by every person connected with an organization.

It is a partnership built around something much simpler: People in our community are trying to do some good, and we want to help them do it.

Until now, that hasn’t been particularly controversial.

Helping the special-needs families served by Southside Support is good.

Promoting a fundraiser for Harp’s Crossing Christian Academy is good.

Talking about the Commemorative Air Force and its work preserving and restoring World War II aircraft is good.

But apparently partnering with Fayette Pride crossed a line for some people.

I don’t agree.

I believe our community should be an accepting place for people regardless of who they date or marry, how they dress, or how they express themselves.

I find beauty in our differences.

And I can choose love regardless of how another person orients their sexuality.

That isn’t theoretical for me.

I went to Fayette Pride. I wore a tie-dyed “Free Mom Hugs” shirt I had made at Big Frog Custom T-Shirts in Fayetteville.

And I gave a lot of hugs.

I don’t know whether every person I hugged that day still gets hugs from their own mom. I don’t know whether they are accepted when they walk through their family’s front door. I don’t know what happens at their dinner tables.

But I am a mom.

And I can show them love.

My decision to partner with Fayette Pride was also more personal than some of our other nonprofit partnerships. In fact, Fayette Pride didn’t approach me.

I approached them.

There are several LGBTQ+ people in my family. Pride isn’t something that exists for us only during one event on one Saturday afternoon.

We celebrate Pride at holidays and around our dinner tables when our family comes together. We celebrate it when we pick up the phone and remind the people we love that they are, in fact, loved.

I have family values.

My family values are to love my family.

And to love yours.

No matter who sits at your dinner table.

I also have faith.

The same weekend as Fayette Pride, The Citizen ran coverage of Open Prayer Spaces, when people gathered at local schools before the first day of classes to pray for students, teachers, administrators, and staff.

Some people may see a contradiction there.

I don’t.

I want to live in a community where we can tell our LGBTQ+ young people on Saturday that they are loved and welcome here, and where we can gather at our schools and lift up our young people in prayer the very next day.

That is the community I want.

That is what my faith looks like in action.

And increasingly, that is what I mean when I say The Citizen practices compassionate community journalism.

We are going to report the news. We are going to investigate difficult stories, ask uncomfortable questions, sit through government meetings, interview the people involved, and tell you what is happening in Fayette and Coweta counties.

Right now, I am in the middle of a major investigative series. I have already spent roughly 18 hours just conducting interviews for it.

That work matters enormously to me.

But journalism doesn’t have to stop at standing on the sidelines taking notes.

This is our community, too.

We live here. We raise families here. We shop here, worship here, volunteer here, celebrate here, and grieve here.

So when people in this community are feeding families, protecting children, helping cancer patients, supporting foster children, repairing homes, preserving history, caring for people with disabilities, praying for students, or telling someone who may desperately need to hear it that they belong here, The Citizen is going to be there.

That includes Fayette Pride.

Our nonprofit partners will tell you that The Citizen is behind them.

We are.

And I intend to make that commitment even stronger. Soon, we’ll introduce a new columnist specifically dedicated to telling readers about the work our local nonprofits are doing and the people they are helping.

Because I believe deeply in this community.

Not only the parts that look like me, vote like me, worship like me, love like me, or build families like mine.

All of it.

That’s what community means.