<b>By Kim Harding</b>

Exactly five years ago, my sister Elizabeth and I took a huge leap of faith. With little experience in the newspaper world, we asked you, the community and the local businesses, to take a chance and “Catch the New Wave.”  This patient town jumped on board, and what a wild ride it has been.

Launching a new business is always a challenge.  Launching in mid-April 2008 turned out to be nearly impossible. Just a few months after our first paper hit the streets, the stock market crashed and America figured out that the real estate bubble had just popped.  Although Beaufort residents and local businesses were excited to have a newspaper that focused only on Northern Beaufort news, the advertising dollars that were needed to support a weekly paper were hard to find.

<a href="http://www.yourislandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Island-News-Original-Cover.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-10790" alt="Island News Original Cover" src="http://www.yourislandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Island-News-Original-Cover-208x300.jpg" width="208" height="300" /></a>Couple the “great recession” with the fact that designing ads, writing articles and delivering papers were not things that we had done before, and you can see that it has been an uphill climb.  Although we had experience publishing monthly magazines, we had never worked on a weekly deadline with weekly expenses.

Slowly we have built an incredible team.  Thanks to their skills, their willingness to work with our small budget,
and thanks to this community’s patience and the good Lord’s grace, we made it!

The Island News has always been a free weekly newspaper. We are supported 100 percent by advertising dollars.  Without the local businesses and their support, we would not be here. Please take the time and join us in thanking these business owners. Let them know how much you appreciate reading local news every week. With the economy continuing to improve, we hope to expand and bring even better coverage to Northern Beaufort County.

Many thanks to everyone who took a chance on us. I hope it has paid off; we would not be here without you. Thank you to all of the people in the community who love reading our local publication. We hope you appreciate the fact that we are a very small business, and even though we might make some mistakes, please know that we are able to laugh at them, and then learn from them to bring you an even better product.

Thank you for bearing with us and we hope to serve you for many years to come.