Dear readers,

I want to let you know of an upcoming change at the Sentinel that will impact how some subscribers will have their newspaper delivered beginning next week.

Most Sentinel subscribers have their newspaper reliably delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. There are still subscribers in Fairmont and Trimont that have a Sentinel carrier deliver their newspaper in the early morning. Effective with the Tuesday, May 14 issue, the Sentinel will utilize the postal service to deliver all newspapers to subscribers in lieu of independent contractors. Filling open positions is a challenge for many businesses and finding carriers to deliver in all kinds of weather in Minnesota is an ongoing challenge. As most of you are aware, businesses everywhere are facing significant challenges in filling their open positions. Numerous newspapers all over the country have converted to all mail delivery in recent years largely due to challenges in finding carriers and also for efficiency reasons.

By allowing the postal service to handle all deliveries, the Sentinel can focus more resources on continuing to reliably gather the most important community news and unique stories to our readers in Fairmont and the surrounding communities that we serve. Our mission is to provide community-focused news to our region.

We know that reading your newspaper on a timely basis is important. If you aren’t comfortable waiting for your mail to arrive to read your newspaper you do have another option. Every print subscriber to the Sentinel can read the online edition as early as 4 a.m. on their favorite device. Subscribers simply need to go to the Sentinel’s website, www.fairmontsentinel.com, and validate their subscription status. Once this process is complete you can read the online edition which is an exact duplicate of the printed edition. If you need assistance with this you can call circulation customer service and a staff member can assist you.

All of us at the Sentinel are proud to do this important work — to serve our communities with our reporting on everything from local government meetings to annual events to heartwarming or interesting stories about the people who choose to call southern Minnesota their home.

Thank you for continuing to subscribe to your local newspaper – the Sentinel.

Brooke Wohlrabe, Editor/Publisher