Half way through the school year, administration told The Hoofprint that they would only have enough funding from the school to print for half of the school year. Refusing to let the bad news cut short their goal of printing seven issues for the year, Hoofprint staff members immediately began trying to sell adds like crazy and fundraised as much as they could, but barely got enough money to print each issue.
The Hoofprint staff didn’t know if the newspaper would be printed next year, or if it was going to be printed less frequently than normal. Right now, The Hoofprint prints seven or eight issues a year and they really wanted to keep it that way.
“For a while we were worried,” said Junior Hope Mueller. “Because of the lack of funds, we didn’t know if we were going to have a paper next year. We started selling ads and had ad parties to work for our goal.”
This newspaper staff strives keep the paper essential to its audience, but the experience of creating a publication is also meaningful to those creating it.
“The Hoofprint means more than just a newspaper to me,” said Senior Kala Czanstkowski. “It’s where I met my best friends, where I’m able to express myself through the art of page design and through writing. Every year I’ve written an article on happiness and it’s something that I am able to look forward to every year. The Hoofprint staff is my family and they mean the world to me.”
Patti Digh, bestselling author of Life is a Verb and other books, helped Hoofprint out a lot this year. She publicized Hoofprint all over Facebook and had people donate money to her pay-pal account. She then sent Hoofprint a check of $1,326.00. Another wonderful donation was from a former student at Buffalo High School’s parents that had donated their bonuses of $1,000.00.
“Roughly a month ago we started selling ads, and I was terrible at it,” said Czanstkowski. “So I went ahead and made my own way to earn cash for the Hoofprint. I asked my friend and author Patti Digh to ask around to see if anyone could donate a few dollars to a poor high school paper. Long story short, she raised plenty more than a few dollars for us.”
The staff said that it is really nice to know that strangers from all over the world were willing to support and help save the newspaper.
“I am definitely relieved, especially since I came to Buffalo High School halfway through the year,” said Junior Samantha Sansevere. “I was afraid that Hoofprint was going to end right when I got here. I give a lot of credit to Kala Czanstkowski because she contacted Patti. I admire her because as a senior, she will not be here next year. Yet she loves Hoofprint so much that she helped save it for us.”
