Asheville Flyer for Kids 1 Year
Hello! My name is Stu Helm, and I am the creator and co-publisher of Asheville Flyer for Kids, the world's greatest FREE monthly paper just for children!
My publishing partner's name is Tim Arem. He's the best.
Tim and I do it all by ourselves... with the help of a tiny handful of very loyal and super awesome volunteers!
Here's our story...
I've been a freelance artist, writer, and graphic designer for most of my life. I published my first "newspaper" in 5th grade, and I've been happily self-publishing ever since! Everything from Fanzines to Comic Books!
I moved to Asheville in 2005, where I met Tim. He hired me to do some design work for his International Children's Film Festival and Father's Fest events. I knew right away that Tim would be a great partner in launching my long-time dream of publishing a free monthly paper for children that is full of "puzzles & pictures & stuff to read, while your parents do something completely boring." (That's our slogan!)
I put together a "dummy issue," made my pitch to Tim, and he liked my idea! With the help of local advertisers and individuals, Tim and I printed and distributed 10,000 copies of our first issue in October of 2012, and we've been publishing 10,000 copies per month ever since!
So far the paper has funded itself through advertising, and we are incredibly grateful to our awesome Ad Partners! But the truth is, Tim and I... well... we're not ad salesmen. That's just a fact.
I mean, we do okay. We've been printing this dang thing for over two years now, and we could continue doing monthly ad sales the traditional way, but y'know what? We'd rather figure out another way to fund this paper.
That's where you guys come in.
I'm sure you know by now what crowd-funding is, so I won't explain all that. You're here, so you know what to do. You can donate in any amount for any reason, or scroll down to shop in our "rewards" section below, which offer opportunities to contribute to AFK on several levels, for several reasons.
We still give you the option to be one of our awesome Ad Partners, because we still believe very much that we are a good vehicle to advertise your business, school, camp, or event through. 10,000 copies of anything that's printed and distributed monthly is nothing to sneeze at!
We want everyone reading this to know that our paper is a huge hit with kids! As well as parents, teachers, counselors, librarians, business owners, and just about everyone! People love our little paper, because it promotes:
Positivity • Diversity • Reading, Writing, Math, and Logic Skills • Brain Fitness • Creativity • Healthy Lifestyles • and FUN!!!
Restaurants even call us on the phone, asking us to bring them more copies when they run out! That's a big deal in the world of distributing free papers! (One waitress once told me AFK stops "French fry fights!" )
In a little over two years we have printed 260,000 units of fun and games and contests and creativity, and Tim and I have done it all for free. We have not paid ourselves. Our investment in time and energy has been huge, but also hugely enjoyable. We would love to continue doing AFK for the kids, but we need your help!
The goal of this campaign is to raise enough money to cover ONE FULL YEAR of printing costs -- one month at a time -- with any overages going to cover all other costs, including paying Tim, myself, and our small group of awesome helper-bees.
Will you help us too? Do it for the kids!!!
That's my pitch to you! I hope you like it as much as Tim liked my original pitch back in 2012. He and I want nothing more that to continue publishing AFK! The kids really want us to as well, and those restaurants really need AFK, so please contribute what you can, and be a part of the world's greatest free monthly paper just for children, Asheville Flyer for Kids!
