Sometimes when building something out of nothing, you ride a pendulum: some days, energized and inspired; other days, vulnerable and alone.

That’s exactly what this past year has felt like, since I returned to Aspen Daily News in a new capacity to launch our Journalism Fund and invite our community to become an even deeper part of our story.

A year ago, we posed a question that was both exhilarating and terrifying: What if we asked our community to directly support the local journalism that serves it? What if we trusted you to invest in the stories that matter, the coverage that keeps democracy humming, and the reporting that makes this valley feel like home?

Your answer has been resounding.

This community has been so, so good to me. I arrived in 2008 — a Great Recession refugee and as

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