This year is 14 East’s fifth anniversary. Five years ago, we were still crammed into a tiny room at 14 E. Jackson Blvd. publishing only a couple of stories each week. Now, we’ve grown and moved our team to our current space in the DePaul Center, and we publish a plethora of stories on our site, both as part of 14 East and Pueblo, our bilingual sister publication. It’s amazing to see how time has flown by.

Five years is an important milestone. For babies, it’s the age at which they start making friends, exploring art and showing greater independence. For us in the 14 East newsroom, it’s a marker at which we have grown exponentially as a magazine.

What began as a simple collective of students without a newsroom has expanded to become a comprehensive organization focused on student-led, community-driven reporting.

Whether it’s through providing water testing kits free of charge to the DePaul community, spending six months reporting on Chicago’s West Side Austin neighborhood or continuing to operate remotely while still providing up-to-date COVID-19 coverage, 14 East has grown an identity that not only reports on issues that matter to the campus community but engages those whom we cover in our reporting process.

In 2020, we received the Pinnacle Award from the College Media Association for the best four-year college media outlet of the year. Dozens of our editors and contributors have also gone on to win individual recognition for their work through journalism awards.

However, to continue and thrive during the next five years of our existence, we need your help. This month, 14 East launched its Inspire DePaul campaign, a university-hosted fundraiser focused on raising the support needed to further grow and sustain our work, to provide funding for our reporters to cover cultural events, supplies for our team’s field reporting and the printing of our annual anthology.

By giving your support, you are not just ensuring the continued success of our magazine but furthering the experiential opportunities it has provided to its members and staff, which have led to skills allowing alumni such as the ones featured in the video below to be hired and excel in the field post-graduation.

Even just five dollars can make a positive impact in the lives of aspiring journalists at 14 East. We encourage you to give as you are able to allow us to grow and continue putting out quality content for the DePaul community and beyond.

The Inspire DePaul campaign will end April 10, 2021. Please visit our Inspire DePaul page for additional details on the campaign and to get in contact with project leaders about any questions. Thank you, always, for your support.

Header image by Justin Myers