We Won!

Awards are great. They’re really fun to win and oh-soo-shiny! We at The Local would know — we’ve won a few. As a matter of fact, we’ve won 18 of them in just two short years. But do all those pretty tchotchkes really matter, aside from looking good on our shelves? My answer: not really.

What does matter is that we  started The Local because we wanted a community magazine that we, as locals, would want to read. One that celebrates this area and the people in it. One we can all be proud of. I waited for somebody else to create that magazine. But as the years passed, I realized that somebody might have to be us.

It takes a lot more than splashing the words “Winter Garden” real big on the cover to make a truly local magazine. We don’t fill our pages with generic stories and stock photos like the other “local” magazines. The ones I always throw out with the junk mail — and you do, too. We work hard to make every issue as good as we know how to make it. Awards are just one way to measure if we’re living up to our promise.

The awards that really matter are the ones we get when you tell us you felt or learned or enjoyed something you read in the magazine. We feel the win when when you reach out with a story to share, because you trust us to tell that story right. And we prize each of the businesses that support what we do and want to be seen in our pages.

Like it says in our name, The Local is truly local. It’s owned, written, photographed, designed, and about local. It’s the way we serve this community we love so much. Which may be why it loves us back. And that outshines any trophy.