Steve Dear's blog

I love newspapers and news blogs. I love reporters. I used to be a reporter. I come from 150 years of men – and one grandmother, Cyrene Bakke Dear – who published local community newspapers from Jersey City to Sedalia, Mo.

In the '60s my mom and dad got a lot of late-night, threatening calls from the Klan in my hometown of Elizabeth City, NC for what my dad did through the Daily Advance. David Dear informed the community with courage. He was also an equal opportunity employer before the phrase existed and he got threats for that, too.

I miss reporters. We need reporters here in Orange County. And everywhere. But you know that.

What you may not know is that something really big just happened here, something that may grow in significance for our community for the rest of the century.

And you probably have not heard a thing about it.

The day before Thanksgiving, El Centro Latino shut its operations down. For the past five years or so my office suite at People of Faith Against the Death Penalty has been located right next to El Centro Latino’s offices in downtown Carrboro. Every day year after year my colleagues and I saw scores of people enter El Centro for help and receive it. Every day we saw and heard happy children run and play and get tutored around the officesof El Centro. We saw adults taking classes. Every day El Centro’s clients overflowed into the hallways of the building. Every day we saw dedicated and caring staff members of El Centro try meet the needs of so many.

I often wondered how they managed. It was clearly exhausting and unrelenting work.

But even though I was so close and saw the amazing work theywere doing I think I took El Centro Latino for granted. I think our community probably has too. Had I not seen it all I would not have known the great work being done there.