Calling all Street Roots readers! This week, post your support of Street Roots vendors and the newspaper on social media. Let’s give vendors a big boost in sales.
The first 10 posts on each platform (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) will receive a 20th anniversary beanie from Street Roots. Just distinguish your post with the hashtag #WeAreStreetRoots so we can find you and message you through that platform.
Post a photo with our Sept. 6-12 issue. It could be a selfie of you, the paper and a vendor (with permission, of course). Or of you reading the paper. It could be playful – tucked under the arm of a statue. Or our doughnut-decorated cover next to a plate of doughnuts. The one ingredient that we need: this issue, in all its glory, with doughnuts on the cover. Let’s sell this issue out!
In this issue, you’ll read about Norm, a vendor who sells on Belmont Street. His loyal customer following, remarkably, raised money so he can have his dream vacation, a trip to Hawaii. Almost weekly, we hear similarly remarkable stories from both vendors and their customers. The neighbors who raised money to buy a trailer for a man to sleep. The customer who helped two women get housing. Another connected a vendor to a job at a restaurant. Customers call us when they don’t see a vendor, checking to see if they are OK. Usually they are; occasionally they’re not. Not long ago, a customer witnessed a vendor have a seizure. After he called an ambulance, he called the Street Roots office.
Many small interactions matter, such as when someone’s face becomes familiar enough for you to smile and nod. When you learn each other’s names, or the names of each other’s dogs. When you talk about the news. Sometimes vendors have poetry or articles in the issue. Sometimes they are featured in profiles, and it’s great to talk to them about their story.
At Street Roots, we care about bringing people together regardless of housing status. To know about each other, we can care about each other, and to care about each other, we can fight for each other.
And our mission is to create a way for people experiencing homelessness and poverty to earn an income. When you buy a newspaper, you are directly benefiting the vendor. It’s their job.
Last year, our readers put an estimated $500,000 in the pockets of Street Roots vendors, not including tips. This is amazing, and we want to keep growing this. Let’s double, triple that number.
When you tell friends how our model works, it helps our vendors sell. And here is how it works: Street Roots vendors buy each paper for a quarter and sell it for a dollar. They run their own micro business, keeping their own books. Sometimes all a person has is a quarter, and they buy one newspaper, go out and sell it, come back and buy four more, sell those, and so on. They grow their business. They work hard, overcoming very difficult circumstances to do so.
Please, too, let your friends know about the newspaper itself. You can share articles on social media to spread the word about our content, and encourage people to find a vendor. Throughout the week, we post articles from the new edition online, and every Friday we announce the new edition with links to articles from the previous week. If you aren’t on our weekly news blast, you can sign up online, or email admin@streetroots.org with the subject line “newsblast.”
Vendors report that selling Street Roots connects them to a product with dignity. We coalesce around a newspaper to produce something people respect and care about, something that is dynamic: the ever-changing news and stories that matter. We’re proud that we play an important role in the region as a key social-justice weekly written by professional journalists. We need to make sure more people know this, so they also support our vendors.
#WeAreStreetRoots
Let’s all help Street Roots vendors sell papers this week – and have some fun with creative #WeAreStreetRoots photos. Let’s spread the word and help make this a record week of paper sales for our amazing crew!
Post a photo on social media that showcases the new issue, and tag it with the hashtag #WeAreStreetRoots. If you are one of the first 10 to post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you win a Street Roots beanie! Thank you for your support.
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand.