Just the other day, we received a $10 check in the mail for no apparent reason. And as we all know, it’s not often that money shows up unannounced and without strings attached.

The sender listed a neighborhood address on the envelope, and her phone number was listed on the check.

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So I gave her a call.

“I just wanted to help you out,” she said. “I know it costs you something to deliver the paper to me every month, and I like your paper so much. I just wanted to do something to support what you are doing.”

The best way to support the Advocate, I told her, is to contact us with story ideas and, even more importantly, support the neighborhood advertisers who support our newspaper.

“You know, I didn’t think about that,” she said. “But I’ll start letting the advertisers know I saw their ad in our Advocate.”

Let The Advertisers Know

Each of our advertisers – however much they like our newspaper – depends upon your support as consumers to defray the cost of their advertising with us.

If our advertisers don’t believe the cost of Advocate advertising results in an equal or greater payback, they find another advertising outlet.

So we’re making a personal and corporate appeal to you today: Let our advertisers know you’re buying their products or using their services because you saw them in the Advocate.

Our advertisers need to hear it from you.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changin’

Beginning today, we’ve improved our monthly real estate coverage in cooperation with our neighborhood Ebby Halliday Realtors office.

On Pages 4-5A of this month’s paper, Ebby Halliday begins sponsoring our monthly Real Estate Report.

Ever since we started publishing monthly residential real estate numbers several years ago, Ebby sales agents have dutifully provided us with a monthly snapshot of neighborhood real estate home prices and other interesting information. The summary is condensed from information provided by the Greater Dallas Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service.

You’ll also notice that our regular Neighborhood News Roundup, which has long been featured on Page 3A, is now found in the second, or “B”, section of the Advocate.

We’re hoping that the additional space available in the “B” section will allow publication of even more neighborhood news and notes.

And or the first time since we founded the Advocate three years ago, we’ve changed the look and format of our monthly Crime Statistics, which are always found in the center of the “B” section.

Along with a new and hopefully easier-to-read format, we’ve begun working even more closely with neighborhood police officers to identify specific “Hot Spots” of neighborhood crime activity. We believe that the more we know, the more effective we can be in reducing crime.

We’re also publishing a new feature called “On The Beat,” which highlights outstanding neighborhood police officers.

All of these changes are intended to improve our newspaper for readers and create more effective promotion opportunities for our advertisers.

If you have ideas for other improvements, give me a call at 341-3353.

We Won! We Won!

We don’t particularly like to blow our own horn, but this news is too good to keep to ourselves: Advocate Community Newspapers recently was recognized as one of America’s best free-distribution newspapers in a nationwide contest sponsored by a major industry publication.

The category in which we were honored included entries from newspapers throughout the United States, and we were the youngest (at the tender age of three years) to be awarded such an honor.

Coupled with the two Small Business Awards we received several months ago from the Greater East Dallas Chamber of Commerce (first place in Community Service; second runner up in Best New Business), we’ve had a few pretty impressive months.

Who Deserves The Credit?

This month, you’re reading the largest paper we’ve ever published – another outstanding accomplishment that deserves recognition.

Our advertising, layout and editorial staff are responsible for this success, and if you don’t mind, we’d like to thank them in this space for all they are doing to make our newspapers successful.

So thanks to Barbara Simcoe, J.R. Arebalo, Sara Guettel, Ellen Hutter, Lisa Smith, Deb Sullins, Karen Cordato, Jeff Van Sicklen and Becky Bull.

Thanks, guys.

Coming Soon: Advocate III

This fall, we’ll began publishing our third Advocate in conjunction with the Vickery Meadows Improvement District, an area roughly bounded by Central Expressway, Royal Lane, Skillman Avenue and Mockingbird Lane.

Our new publication will be trying to help provide a sense of community in a part of the City that isn’t particularly known for that.

And as a special note to advertisers, we’ll be reaching more than 17,000 apartments each month, including door-to-door delivery to each of Lincoln Property’s apartments in the Village.

As has become our trademark, the new newspaper will be distributed free-of-charge directly to households, boosting our audited total monthly distribution to more than 65,000.

Now, let’s see…if every household sent us a check for $10 every year…