- Dec 26, 2021

The Top 40 Local Stories of 2021

StettlerLocal.com December 26, 2021 @ 10 AM

It's been a rough year. This was a year that found friends, family and neighbours torn apart over opinions on COVID vaccinations; local businesses were forced to shut down, our healthcare system was stretched and challenged, our seniors were forced to endure more isolation, people screamed at local workers over their right to not wear masks in stores and the fear and pain that the last two years has caused made us all raw and grumpy.

But also in 2021, new businesses started, charities found new ways of raising funds and sharing resources, schools adapted, our healthcare system continued to serve, businesses supported each other, older businesses upgraded, seniors started going out again, and we realized that although it is uncomfortable and takes a little effort, we can adapt. We can keep going. We are resilient.

StettlerLocal.com also adapted. When I sat down with the new Editor in August of this year, we reflected on the feedback StettlerLocal.com had received since we launched in January 2020; we reviewed the website traffic to see what you found interesting, we identified gaps in community information, and a new direction began to line up and layout for us like lights on an airport runway. We found the intersection of what you wanted, our strengths and then (without a bunch of hoopla or grand announcements) we switched StettlerLocal.com from a news format to an online magazine format and focused our energy on only reporting and providing information on what brings our community together.

This year:

We quadrupled our efforts in promoting local events
We started Erskine Local and Big Valley Local to help support those community's communications and give them a better online presence.
We started Local Spotlights to bring a face to the names of the people who make up our community and remind us that people in our community are much more than just a bio on a social media profile.
We focused on supporting local businesses through our business listings, driving traffic to local businesses and their websites from our website and our app.
We embraced our roots and honoured our farmers with a section just for agriculture.
With the support of Our Town Stettler, we work to make sure the stories and photos of our history are available online anytime.
We started a Community Safety Series sharing tips about Crime Prevention, Mental Health, Emergency Preparedness, Fire Safety, and the monthly Drive Safe Stettler campaign. These messages are also being shared on the Stettler Community Screens. The Community Safety Series is about small reminders to keep our community safe and healthy and hopefully spark good conversation on essential topics.
We curated the most comprehensive list of local charitable organizations and service groups in the County of Stettler.
We maintain the only online list of local sports teams while promoting local sports through publishing team updates, reports and articles.
We started a Health & Wellness section to focus on mental and physical health topics that affect our community.

What we deliver every day helps bring our community together, and we are proud of the work we do. With #stettlertogether in mind, here are the Top 40 Stories of 2021 in no particular order.