From the Editor: Our community is full of gems – tell us about them

Maggie Schneemann, right, with Dayton Diaper Depot board member Doris Bonomini

Maggie Schneemann, right, with Dayton Diaper Depot board member Doris Bonomini

We’re lucky: we don’t have to look very far to find people helping others in our community every day. One of my favorite things we do at the Dayton Daily News is cover the stories of those helpers, who show up in big and small ways for their neighbors and community members, with our Community Gems initiative.

On Sunday, we publish the first of our Community Gems features. You can find them here.

This initiative started in 2021, when we asked readers to tell us about people who give their time and effort to make this a better place to live. Since then, we’ve published more than 100 features on our Community Gems. Now, we’re asking for your help again: who makes our community better? We want you to tell us. It’s simple – just visit this link to submit.

There are many ways to be a Community Gem. You could nominate anyone – a community member, friend, neighbor, family member, or coworker. You could nominate a neighborhood kid who helps mow the lawn of elderly neighbors; an individual who has taken up a personal cause with grassroots efforts; or a leader who’s seeking to address challenges in our community at a large scale. We want to show the many ways that people in this community make it a better place to live.

We know there’s a lot of tough news and information in a rapidly-changing world – but we don’t want to lose sight of the good. Help us find and celebrate the helpers who make this place so great.

Ashley Bethard is the Dayton Daily News editor and chief content officer.

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