2020 has been hard on everyone

Jeff Green | Dec 16, 2020

Every year we put the call out to local schools about our Christmas drawing contest. We rarely hear anything back, and each year as we are putting out the second to last paper of the year we wonder if we will get any drawings from the schools.

This year was no different. The deadline we set was December 11, and as of the morning of December 8th we had heard from only one teacher who wanted some drawings picked up. By the time the10th rolled around, we had drawings from 8 schools, sometimes one class in a school and sometimes multiple classes. We had more drawings to judge than ever before.

We did ask the students to focus on a message of hope this year, and the drawings reflect that, but more than  a few of them are poignant reminders that, as resilient as children are, they feel the same stresses that their parents and grandparents feel over the pandemic, that has dominated our lives this year.

Things that used to be so simple: visiting friends, seeing grandparents, playing sports, are either difficult or impossible. We all need to do our best to look after each other right now. 

We decided that, in addition to the contest winning drawings, we would reproduce some that deal directly with COVID-19. They can be found on page 14.

At the Frontenac News, it has been a hard year as well. A rewarding year, but a hard one.

When the pandemic hit, we did not know what we would be reporting on. Would we have anything to cover when all public events were cancelled? Would we have access to how decisions were being made, when in person council meetings were cancelled?  How would we finance all of this when many of our advertisers were not operating?

It turned out that there has been a lot to cover. The businesses in our communities have figured out how to remain viable and relevant, even those that have faced serious obstacles, and people have come to realise that when push came to shove, it was the retail and service businesses in their own communities who have been there for them.

At the News, we have been lucky enough to be able to chronicle all of this, and we have ourselves been supported by our readers.  We ask those readers that can afford to, to voluntarily support us, and they have this year, in greater numbers than before, and we have been supported by the business community and the local municipalities as well and have remained financially viable.

Each year when we approach our final paper of the year, I find myself getting tired. It's as if the prospect of a couple of weeks without the grind of putting out a paper reminds me that putting out a paper each week is pretty tiring.

But this year, I am feeling it that much more, and I know I am not alone in this. You can see it in the students drawings, and you would see it in the faces of the people you meet on the street, if you could see their faces.

All of the protocols, all of the information, all of the decisions about where to go, who to see, and how. All of the worry about our livelihoods, our health, the health of the vulnerable people we love, it all takes a toll.

Luckily, we live in a rich country, and we have the necessary resources to get through this pandemic. In the interim we need to keep taking care of each other as best we can.

As the Frontenac News prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, I feel that we played an important role in 2020 providing specific, relevant information to our readers that only a local paper is in a position to provide.

I would like to thank the newspaper staff, our community columnists, our readers, and our advertisers, for the unprecedented support throughout 2020.

Our communities have proven themselves to be strong and resilient this year. We have fared better than many others have, and although we are all stretched and have a long winter ahead of us, we will make it through to the day when we can remove our masks, and move on from this time.