I love this story about 12-year-old Rachel Van Gelder, a Mercer Island newsie who has successfully started her own community newspaper, called "The Hoot." She started the paper in an effort to make new friends after moving to the area. Her mom told the Mercer Island Reporter: "When we first came here, we didn't know our neighbors ... It's a different community than in Missouri. People have lived here for a long time, but they didn't know each other." So Rachel went door-to-door to get people involved. Now she's got a team of young contributors. She started the paper in May, and circulation has grown from 10 to 20 households, so she's switching to an online-only format to save on costs. "We want to do this as long as we can," she told the Reporter. "It's just really, really fun."
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