Wilma Whimsies is a neighborhood newspaper produced by 6 young Tylerites

Published 5:45 am Saturday, December 28, 2024

On a quiet street in Tyler, six young girls from three families on Wilma Street are proving that creativity and community spirit can spark something big. With their neighborhood publication, Wilma Whimsies Newspaper, the girls are showing the future journalism can find hope right on their block.

“It’s completely written by kids,” said 13-year-old Trinity Alders, who acts as the newspaper editor. “There’s almost no grown-up help … besides with the printer.”

The newspaper is printed on 8.5-inch by 11-inch paper, stapled, and delivered to the neighborhood on Wilma Street. Content includes neighborhood tidbits — such as a new baby or a black cat that likes to steal other cats’ food from porches, as well as comics and the weather.

“It’s really fun to do it,” Trinity said. “There’s a decent amount of news and it’s mostly what we have is a lot of neighborhood things so everybody kind of knows each other and we write what goes on.”

Each budding journalist has a role; Josephine Wiesinger, 10, and Madeline Alders, 11, gather and write the news.

“For Thanksgiving, we walked around the neighborhood and asked whether they liked turkey or ham for Thanksgiving, and ham won,” Josephine said.

Some of the girls are illustrators, like 4-year-old Camilla Wiesinger, who likes to draw cats for a section of the newspaper.

“It is a group effort,” said mom Rebecca Wiesinger. “They involve the 4-year-old as best she can help, and they’re very patient with her giving her something to do to be a part of the team. So, it’s sweet to see the way the older ones have taken the younger ones along.”

Josephine and Madeline also collaborate with a cat-and-mouse comic. Eleven-year-old Merris Rives is considered the copy editor.

“I help write and do the edits to make sure everything is OK,” Merris said. “Sometimes I help collect the news too.”

The pint-size publication got its start when a tree from the early summer storms fell on the Wiesinger house, forcing them to rent the house next door and bringing them closer to the other families, who were also facing challenges from the storm. The newspaper has even covered updates on the houses being rebuilt on the street.

“It’s definitely a side project but it’s also homework because they’re learning responsibility,” Rebecca said. “We want them to be consistent. We want them to follow up with what they said they were going to do. They have goals as far as what they’re saving up for.”

The girls are saving up for a new printer to ease the burden of using dad’s, and for a camcorder for future projects.

According to mom Joanna Alders, the idea for the neighborhood newspaper started further back.

“One of our kids came up and said ‘I kind of want to start this,’” she said. “I thought it was a great idea. They did it for a few weeks and then they would have occasional news come out. Then they decided to pick it back up because it was exciting and fun.”

The girls learn the importance of key questions in journalism — the who, what, where, when, why, and how — and how each piece of the puzzle helps tell the story.

“(Good journalism) is about having all the facts and making it interesting,” Trinity said. “It’s more than just ‘this happened at this time’… it’s making it into a story.”

The Wilma Whimsies Newspaper plans to publish twice a month instead of once a month as an opportunity to gain more stories and put them on more than one page.

“It’s fun to do things together, especially drawing the comics and writing the stories, collecting the news,” Madeline said. “Most of the people that we deliver to are our friends.”

The Wilma Whimsies Newspaper has 24 subscribers who stay tuned in with the latest neighborhood news. The publication charges $1 a month, and each issue is delivered door-to-door by the girls with 7-year-old Lucy Wiesinger often carrying the backpack filled with the papers.

“We’ve been just excited to see the response from our friends and our neighbors,” said mom Rebecca Wiesinger. “They’ve really jumped on board far more than we expected.”

For $10, the newspaper also offers local businesses a chance to advertise in the pages.

“The neighbors have been really sweet,” said dad Chris Wiesinger. “We’ve gotten advertising requests, like ‘how can we help?’ It has been tremendous.”

Although it is a side project, the junior journalists are committed to the idea that local journalism indeed matters, with each edition reflecting on the power of community storytelling.

“If there wasn’t journalism, there wouldn’t be any news,” Merris said.

The parents believe the endeavor has been a ‘great opportunity’ for the girls to learn how to complement each others’ strengths as a group and assess how responsibilities are divided.

“They really negotiate the workload based on who’s good at what and so it’s just kind of been fun for them to see sort of that group project dynamic where you want people in the right spot doing the thing that they’re most passionate about,” said mom Jamie Rives. “It’s good for them to know how important it is to do your part for the group and not rely on one person to kind of carry the load.”

“This is an educational opportunity in understanding those really important questions of trying to understand a story,” Chris added. “But we’re not making this not fun for them. We’re just letting them have fun, so they can create their own story and that’s the level that we’re enjoying as parents doing this.”

The parents take a hands-off approach when it comes to the newspaper’s creation, allowing the girls to take full ownership of the process, including their own editing.

“Right now, they’re very practically learning how to work with one another and what teamwork looks like,” Chris said. “They learn what give and take looks like, about caring and listening, working on deadlines and how schedules work.”

They also like that it helps limit the screen time.

“Any opportunity where our kids are being creative, we’re all for it,” Rebecca said.

The families were supportive and all on-board with the project, as long as the girls remained committed to it.

“We told them that they actually had to keep up with it,” Joanna said.

“It’s a good learning opportunity to work together and then also meet deadlines and craft a story and learn how to write and edit,” said dad Daniel Alders. “Those are skills that they’re going to use for the rest of their life, and this project has been a great way to meld all of those skills together and meet more neighbors.”

Although they’re not certain as to whether they will pursue journalism professionally as they get older, the girls are enjoying the process, learning valuable skills while having fun with each issue they create.

“If it’s done by kids it’s a little bit more fun and it’s just a lot more local and people want to know about stuff going on in their area,” Trinity said. “I don’t read the newspaper very much, like big newspapers — my dad does — but I think it’s fun to have something that’s like just in your area. But we have gotten some news stories from the real newspapers.”

The Wilma Whimsies Newspaper now has an email that welcomes whimsical stories for the girls to feature: wilmawhimsies@gmail.com. The parents monitor the inbox and relay any submissions to the girls for consideration in upcoming issues.

“These are things that matter for our girls, to us as well,” Daniel said. “The things that happen in our neighborhood… the things that they know and are closest to and impact their lives. Living in community with one another… it’s been really neat for (the girls) to make that kind of impact.”