Partnerships make a difference in communities. We see it all the time. Our hospital teams with local businesses, schools and churches to hold drives that keep life-saving blood supplies from dwindling. Industries partner with civic organizations to provide coats to those who need them in the cold, winter months. Local businesses join governments in providing fun activities that bring people into the downtown to shop, eat and fellowship. People join together to provide needed school supplies for students about to start school.
Unique partnerships abound, and all are avenues that serve to strengthen our communities.
We believe in these partnerships, and this year, we are forging one of our own.
Starting in September, a new partnership between this newspaper and the Simple Gift Fund will open new doors to the Lakewood District, offering wider communication, broader promotion, increased knowledge and a road to strengthened literacy.
Aptly called the Lakewood Community Literacy Partnership and tailored loosely on the old Newspapers in Education program, the project will provide a free Wednesday Sampson Independent to every student and their parents in the school district throughout the year.
Those newspapers will be used to engage students, teaching them how to use the information inside as a complement to their curriculums, as well as to learn more about their community, find services, and see themselves promoted for the many good things they do throughout the year.
What’s more, students at Roseboro-Salemburg Middle will have the opportunity to be part of a Junior Reporter Club, where they will get to develop their own community newspaper, designing it, writing the stories that will be published in it, taking the photographs and deciding its focus each quarter of the upcoming school year.
It is a way to engage them in reading and draw them closer to their community, something we have nearly lost in this digital age we live in.
Reading physical news challenges students to engage in “deep reading”—a cognitive process that digital scrolling actively undermines.
Unlike an algorithm-driven feed tailored to provoke immediate emotional reactions, a newspaper presents curated, vetted information. It forces a reader to weigh evidence, understand structure, and distinguish between reporting, analysis, and opinion. When a student reads about sidewalk improvements proposed in their town, a commissioner proposal to close local libraries or a profile of a student in their school, what they are reading isn’t abstract — it connects directly to the streets they walk every day.
Local news provides students with a living textbook. It shows them that history isn’t just something that happened in 1776 or in distant capitals; it is happening right here in Sampson County and in towns like Roseboro, Salemburg and Autryville, written by real people asking real questions.
The impact of this initiative does not stop when the final bell rings either. A physical newspaper travels. It gets stuffed into a backpack, unpacked at home, and left on the kitchen counter.
In that simple migration, the newspaper bridges the gap between the classroom and the home. It invites parents, older siblings, and grandparents into the educational fold. In households with limited high-speed internet or where parents work long hours, a physical paper offers an accessible connection to local civics and needed services.
These moments can transform passive consumers of printed media into active civic participants. They spark multi-generational conversations about public stewardship, the local economy, and community responsibility.
Civic health does not happen by accident. It is cultivated in our homes, modeled in our institutions, and taught in our schools.
Because we want Lakewood’s youth to grow into critical thinkers, engaged voters, and invested neighbors, the newspaper, with the help of Simple Gifts, is giving them the tools to understand their community. By putting a local newspaper on every student’s desk — and at every family’s kitchen table — we hope it will become one of the most practical, impactful investments we can make.
We are thankful that those with Simple Gifts saw the potential impact and agreed to partner with us to make it a reality for those in the Lakewood District.