Record Foundation Off to Great Start

We are pleased and proud to report that The Rye Record’s new membership and donation program is off to an excellent start.

Since we announced the launch of The Record’s Foundation for Community News two weeks ago, residents have been becoming members and making generous contributions.

“The Rye Record plays an important role in keeping us informed, engaged, and connected to the community,” said Soul Ryeders Founder Sandy Samberg, who contributed with her husband, Joe. “We’re proud to support this inaugural effort to ensure it remains a trusted source of local news and storytelling for years to come.”

Bob and Lee Woodruff, Rye residents and Record supporters, concurred.

“The Rye Record is a local treasure that needs to be preserved,” said Lee Woodruff, a former contributing reporter for CBS This Morning and Good Morning America and the author of three books. “Journalism is about grassroots. For it to represent what is happening, to report the truth, to share ideas, to witness events, it has to begin at the local level. When you let local media wither and die, it's like missing the bottom step on the stairs, everything is off balance. It’s critical to keep local media alive.”

Added her husband, Bob Woodruff, the former co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight: “I am more convinced than ever that our country must protect and strengthen local newspapers and magazines. The most important stories are the ones unfolding in our own backyards, reported by journalists who live in our communities and truly understand them.

“As national news becomes more generic, repetitive, and political, local reporting remains essential. We need to support the reporters who witness what is really happening where we live. I’m a proud and committed supporter of local journalism.”

Supporters of The Rye Record can become members with donations of $150, $250 or $500 — or larger donations. All contributions are tax-deductible thanks to our fiscal sponsorship by Report for America/The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit.

Contributions will help pay for writers, editors, and photographers; printing and mailing of the newspaper to everyone in our community; and distributing news, features, and sports through our website, newsletters, podcast and social media.

One hundred percent of your support will go toward strengthening and improving the newspaper and our digital properties. And you will enjoy membership benefits that include invitations to community events, a member newsletter, and with your consent, public recognition of your support.

Cliona Cronin became a member the day the campaign launched.

“Local papers build community,” said Cronin, a winner of the Lion’s Club’s James A. and Marian M. Shea Community Service Award. “The Rye Record keeps me informed about what I need to know. I work in Scarsdale which lost its paper, and I have witnessed the void it left.”

The 123-year-old Scarsdale Inquirer closed in January 2024, one of 10 Westchester communities that have lost their newspapers in the last several years. Nationally, more than 3,500 of America’s newspapers have closed since 2005, almost 40 percent of the total.

We never want that to happen in Rye.

When we acquired the newspaper two years ago, our goal was to stabilize the business and make sure it endures. We have invested heavily in improving both the paper’s editorial quality and its financial strength.

We have significantly increased coverage of news, features, the arts, and sports. We have invested in making our website timely and launched two newsletters, a podcast, and an array of social media channels.

And we have increased and diversified our advertising.

The efforts of our talented team have not gone unnoticed. This year we were honored to receive three awards for journalistic excellence from The New York Press Association and one from the Connecticut Press Club.

While we are doing well and succeeding, there is much more we would like to accomplish. We want to keep investing in The Record and our community.

We are counting on Rye residents who value high-quality, free local news delivered directly to their homes to become members of The Rye Record Foundation for Community News and help the paper continue to improve and thrive for many years to come.

The Foundation intends to allow us to continue delivering (quite literally to your mailbox) a free newspaper that makes Rye a better and more cohesive place for all of us to live.

We believe that a hometown newspaper is strongest when it is supported by the people it serves. And a valuable and vibrant local newspaper is an important part of keeping Rye the place we are proud to call home.

Please join today!