Dear readers,
On behalf of our newsroom staff, I want to express my gratitude to you for being an Orlando Sentinel reader and someone who supports a free press, which is vital for our democracy.
While I’m about to mark my first year as the Sentinel’s executive editor, I can tell you that our mission has not changed since our first issue was printed in 1876: hold the powerful accountable to the people they govern.
Over the past year, we’ve reported about the questionable finances of Hope Florida, the Casey DeSantis-run charity, despite the state’s attempt to silence our reporting by sending us a “cease and desist” letter. We’ve produced in-depth stories about how wealthy families and pricey schools are reaping millions in tax funds from the expansion of Florida’s school voucher program.
We teamed up with other Central Florida news organizations to report on the state’s ban on public camping and its impact on our homeless population. We also looked at how a botched police chase led to the death of a young mother, Delmy Alvarez.
And we’ve documented the impact on our local immigrant community from ICE raids, including the story of a Sanford grandfather, born in refugee camp, nabbed by ICE after 70 years in U.S.
These stories — and others like them — take hundreds of hours of digging and thousands of dollars to report.
We know there are more out there waiting to be reported, but we can use your help.
How? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to the Orlando Sentinel Community News Fund to help fund our investigative reporting and other vital local journalism. You can go to OrlandoSentinel.com/donate or send a check to Florida Press Foundation, 1025 Greenwood Blvd., Suite 191, Lake Mary, FL, 32746 and note it is for Orlando Sentinel.
The Florida Press Foundation set up the Fund in 2020 to help the Sentinel and other newspapers expand their journalism. If you have given to the Fund in the past, thank you. We hope you and others will consider providing us a boost for 2026.
Best regards,
Roger Simmons