| Dear Friend, Giving Tuesday is in the home stretch, with a goal of raising the first $23,500 of our year-end $100,000 goal. We’ve raised $13,000 so far and need your help! Why $23,500? Because that’s what it cost for our Maine Focus team to produce 14 investigations into the origins and impacts of PFAS over the last 12 months. Not only does this reporting take time, it's expensive. These stories take weeks to report, write and edit. Then there are the costs of mileage, meals and public records. Sixty percent paid the salaries of reporters, 14% paid for our editing costs, 15.9% covered records requests and 9.8% paid for travel and mileage costs.
 That’s just one example of reporting costs, and the BDN newsroom produces dozens of original stories every day, all year long. While not every story is a months-long investigation, every story matters to Maine communities. Will you join us on Giving Tuesday in support of our community news service mission for the year ahead? | 
