News : Vinton Today prepares to roll out new website

Last year, just a few weeks before COVID hit, we began to plan to rebuild the Vinton Today website. Then, well everything was upended.

Then we put that on hold figuring that we'd have people adjusting to the new situation.

It's been a long process, but Vinton Today is finally just about ready to roll out its new website. For the last couple of years, our technology which brings you the news every day has slowly been breaking down. You didn't see it on the front end of the website, but on the back end, there have been calls to my wonderful web designer guy, Wes. It started with what we jokingly called our, "from problem." For some reason, the website had decided every time I used words like "from, set, select, update" it thought that I wanted to rewrite the computer code. As if I'd know even know how to write computer code! It took a bit, but issues like that continued to crop up, and Wes said, "We really need to think about rebuilding the website code."

The question for me was then, "How much is this going to cost?" It was one of those price tags that I wouldn't normally spring for unless I was going to shop for a used car. But, I knew it was necessary to be here. So I gulped and gave the go ahead to begin building it.

There are other issues like camera equipment that I still need for Jeff and Sage to use as they cover the sporting events. We've been limping along with that as well trying to figure out what lenses still work and what does not. We have finally patched together a camera that is working, for now.

Really those are the only two needs that we're asking for you to help us with. The website cost was several thousand dollars and probably for the camera and lenses we need another thousand.

I don't remember how long it's been since we have asked for your help, I think it's been several years, but now is the time that I need to ask again.

Because Vinton Today is a free service, and because Vinton is a relatively small town, we are able to function on the continued support of the businesses that advertise with Vinton Today. That keeps the lights on. However, when expenses like this creep up, I have to ask for your help.

Vinton Today doesn't charge you to read any of our stories, you don't need a subscription to access any story. We don't charge you to run obituaries as every other newspaper does, if we did, that alone would cover this I'm sure. However, from the beginning, we decided that we wouldn't ask grieving families who are already paying to bury a loved one to pay to notify the community of their loss. We do that FREE.

So for the next several days or weeks, I'm going to have to ask you for your help. If you could send in a donation to Vinton Today, it would be greatly appreciated.

Donations are NOT tax deductible.

If you can help with this project, please send your gift to:

Vinton Today

P.O. Box 7

Vinton, Iowa 52349

or you can send a donation through Venmo simply direct it to @VintonToday.

Again, I thank you for your continued help to keep Vinton Today FREE!