July 24, 2006

Thank you El Tecolote!

You can imagine my surprise when I received a call from a customer wanting to buy a membership because of the article she'd just seen in El Tecolote.

"What article?" I asked.

"The full page one."

Sure enough, when I pulled out the paper for the July 13-26 edition I saw that El Tecolote had printed our ENTIRE fundraising letter on page five of their paper. Wow!

This really warmed our heart, because El Tecolote has been around even longer than we have--36 years compared to our 35--and we see them as a neighbor and an integral part of this community. They are a bilingual bi-weekly paper published by Accion Latina, a Mission-based nonprofit. Pick up a copy or visit them on their site. Currently they have an interesting piece on the Mexican elections by journalist in the field extraordinaire John Ross.

And if you doubt the power of print, here's another funny anecdote. Coming back from LA this weekend on the California Shuttle Bus I was chatting with a cool guy who does social services work with youth in the Mission. When I mentioned where I work he said, "Oh yeah, I know Modern Times. That's a great bookstore! In fact, I was just reading about you in El Tecolote."

(In another media mention, The San Francisco Chronicle just did a front page piece in their Sunday, July 23 paper. It's titled "Stores Thinking Outside the Book," by Heidi Benson. It's an overview of the different solutions independents have found to stay in business.)

posted by Brenda O'Sullivan

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