You Must Use YOUR Talents to Serve, Not Someone Else's

By Anne Boswell

(This is an editorial, an opinion piece, not a news story)

This will be real and raw. I hope you take the time to read it.

There are many ways to serve your community and you must figure out what works for you and your family. Some serve meals at Feed The Homeless and Elderly type events, others round up donated clothes to find people in the community who need them. A few might check in on elderly community members to make sure they're not lonely. There could be some who find that staying in touch with the infirmed or hurting to pray for them is their calling.

It could be something as simple as taking a meal to a family who is grieving, a card, a thought, a check in.

It might be volunteering your time to lend your talents to an event, organizing it, helping promote it etc.

It might be mentoring youth.

And it might be that you use your hobby to write news in a small community designated as a news desert.

That's mine. Or at least one of mine.

I appreciate all who have liked and followed the Colorado News Your Way Facebook page and certainly appreciate those of you who click on the website to read a story and stay to read a few more.

I spent more than 25 years of my life using my journalism degree to earn a paycheck in radio and television, and along the way I've even earned several peer given awards to include the Colorado Association of Broadcasters Award of Excellence in news reporting. It's a state-wide award and I competed with reporters in other medium sized radio markets.

I say all of this to tell you that while I have a few businesses who believed in the power of local news who've supported me, I mostly write this site for FREE. I do NOT make money maintaining this site or writing. I create all of the graphics and promote the stories by myself.

I have other writers who contribute to the site too, and for that, I'm very grateful.

Writing is one of my talents and it's a way I'm able to give back to my community. It takes time. I try to make the stories I write matter to Southeast Colorado. That includes writing a local angle on a national story that will certainly affect us.

So I hope that you accept my gift to the community with this thought. Writing is the way I can help make the community a better place, or at least I hope you feel that way. But you might be giving your time and talents in other areas, that's what we should do. We must all have different things to contribute to make a community thrive and grow.

Please give some thought to volunteering somehow in your community, whether it be with CASA, the Arkansas Valley Hospice, RESADA, serving on a board, or something that speaks to you.

It just takes an hour or two a month, more if you'd like, and makes such an impact.

If you've read this far, I hope I can continue to make some sort of impact. I hope you understand this media website is truly a labor of love.

~Anne Boswell (Taylor)

Yes, I use my maiden name professionally but am happily married to Chad Taylor who prefers to sit in the background of the sometimes crazy life of a reporter/writer/creator.

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