Help us continue our housing and livability coverage by supporting our reporting fellow

Thanks to your generosity and philanthropic support, we’ve been able to bring you content we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do.

We are incredibly grateful that our readers have made adding community-funded reporters to our staff a reality. Your help is making a difference, and because of that, I am here today to ask again for that support as we kick off our fall fundraising campaign.

Specifically, we seek support to continue our reporting around housing, livability and quality of life issues in Richland and Lexington counties.

Many of you will recognize the work that has been done by reporting fellow Rebecca Liebson. Her reporting has not only been supported by you, but also by the Central Carolina Community Foundation, the Knight Foundation and Report for America, a national service program that helps place emerging journalists in local newsrooms.

Rebecca has been writing about people and issues so important to the overall health of the community but often overlooked by the media. She’s written, for example, about how many have struggled to pay for utilities during COVID-19, how the CDC ban didn’t halt eviction cases and told a story of a neighborhood that had been gentrified in a USC land deal and how the lone remaining Black church in the area wanted in back.

Each of those stories was made possible by outside support.

Each time we’ve asked for support, we’ve been humbled not only by the donations but the kind notes many of you attach. I share them all with the team, and they are day brighteners.

You can make a donation online here: www.thestate.com/donate.

If you would prefer to send a check, please make it payable to “Journalism Funding Partners” or “JFP” with “The State” on the memo line. If you provide us with an email address, we can send you a tax donation letter confirming your gift.

Checks should be mailed to: McClatchy, PO Box 15779, Sacramento CA, 95852.

Thank you for your support and continued readership.

Brian Tolley is the president and editor of The State.