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Obituaries | The Tube City Almanac | June 17, 2025
I really hate asking for money, but we’re at a critical point.
Here’s the bottom line: Look at the readership figures above.
If everyone who reads our website had given us $1 last year, we would never need to run advertising. But in reality, only a small percentage of people ever donates — usually as a thank-you for posting a death notice.
If it wasn’t for support for a few faithful donors — among them, the G.C. Murphy Co. Foundation, the Bill Persson family, the Flynn Family Foundation, Larry and Rikki Berger, and Eric and Judy Wisniewski — we’d be in big trouble.
As it is, we’ve taken two big financial hits recently. Our advertising revenue has dropped by about $100 per month after we responded to complaints by limiting the number of ads you see. And one of our longtime donors says they need to cut back their support by about $100 per month.
At the same time, our expenses have gone dramatically up. We are working to move our websites to a new server and as a result, our webhosting cost has already increased $1,200 — and we haven’t moved yet.
Royalties for playing music have gone up about 40 percent. We also now must pay for a service to file reports with the royalty-collecting organizations — that’s costing us $50 per month. (You may have noticed that several local Internet radio stations have gone out of business because they can no longer afford the costs.)
Add all of that up — we need to raise another $500 a month or so, or we’re not going to be able to continue. We have a small reserve fund right now but it’s not going to last.
If you are financially able, and would like to make a gift, please consider doing so.
Donations may be made by check or money order to:
Tube City Community Media Inc.
P.O. Box 94
McKeesport PA 15134
Or via PayPal at: http://www.tubecityonline.com/contact/
I think what we do is important. I think that other people do, as well. Last year, we were honored by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania with the “Service to Journalism” award. Two of our reporters received separate awards for their work.
Five years ago, we were singled out by Columbia Journalism Review and asked to contribute monthly pieces about local news coverage, which were later collected into a book called “American Deadline.”
If you think this is important — even if you just visit our obituaries page every day — we very much could use your support. We pay reporters $50 to $100 per story. Your $50 or $100 gift goes directly to paying for their work — I don’t take any kind of payment from this website, and neither do any of our board members or officers.
If we could raise an extra $5,000 to $10,000 this year, we’d be OK.
We are recognized as a tax-exempt organization by the Internal Revenue Service, so your gift may be tax-deductible as a charitable contribution.
If you have a business that is looking to make a contribution, or if you have a charitable foundation that could donate money to help us, please reach out.
Thank you for your continued support of our organization.
Originally published June 17, 2025.
Other deaths:
"Alvin D. Werner" ||