This first edition of the Journal in 2024 comes to you thanks to a massive collective effort. All of our contributors, our staff (in communities across the Pontiac), and especially our advertisers, want you, proud Pontiac residents, to take note of the events around us, down the street, in Otter Lake, in Chapeau – everywhere! Our commitment is not to one town. And behind each report and photo-story is a team of your neighbours at work. They report Pontiac as a welcoming community full of community news – local politics, cultural events, community groups at work, day after day. The businesses advertising here offer help with everything from legal wills to electrical upgrades; these ads help find volunteers for everything from checking on an isolated neighbour to fundraising for sick kids or a vital new machine for the CLSC. Local businesses offer jobs right here. This may not seem like much compared to a government job, requiring the daily long drive down Highway 148 dumping fumes into our world’s changing climate.
Local employment makes a huge difference to the vitality of the Pontiac. Every local job helps create more local jobs, and to start all of this off, these advertisers bring you this newspaper, free, delivered to your address.
So use the Journal to find services and help, dear reader. Each time you step into the local economy, YOU help keep the Pontiac vibrant. Every time you open the Journal, every time you send in a Letter to the Editor, or give us a tip for a news story, you help re-create our Pontiac. And, like local volunteering, registering your opinion or signing up for an activity must happen in real life, not remain a dinner table idea or lost in some social media group’s yapping. Your opinions matter to your municipal council, in our Letters to the Editor, and by attending public consultations. Volunteer to drive our elders or cancer patients to appointments! Actually shop for a local gift, rather than ordering online! Don’t just live here, be here, dear reader, with the Pontiac Journal in your hand!
These, dear reader, are easily accomplished goals that make the Pontiac a better place to live, raise your family, operate business, or to retire in; this starts with opening any of the Journal’s many pages, pages that keep you informed, that support local businesses, associations, volunteers – all that re-creates your own well-being, right here in the Pontiac!
