Meet some of the volunteers who are helping The Indypendent reach a working-class, multiracial audience that spans the city. 

Nanette Whetstone
Soundview, Bronx

I first came across The Indypendent at WBAI when I went there to pick up a premium. That was five or six years ago. I’ve been reading the paper ever since. 

And now, I help distribute it in three ­different libraries in my community and in the laundry room in my apartment building. 

I want to share what I’m learning from The Indypendent. I learn so much about how people are responding to all the inequalities — to all the racism, sexism and homophobia. And the writing is so good. I get the meat of what people are feeling. When I have conversations with people who don’t read press like The Indypendent, I feel like I’m getting such total misinformation. 

I feel honored to be able to share the paper. When I recently went to the laundry room, I put six papers down. I forgot something I had to go get upstairs. I came right back down, and there were two papers left. So that was nice to see.

Lew Friedman
Park Slope, Brooklyn

I’m a New Yorker. I was born and raised here. I used to distribute underground newspapers in the East Village in the early 1970s. I also used to read the old Guardian newspaper for many years before it crashed in the early 1990s. The Indypendent is following in the footsteps of papers like that. 

I’ve been helping out for years as a box steward. I make sure their boxes on Fifth and Seventh avenues stay tidy and have a display copy in the window. When a box gets low, I have extra bundles at my house that I use to restock it. I also drop off the paper at venues in Park Slope where people know me. 

I go to the Park Slope Food Co-op regularly. You can’t put papers out in the co-op, but I always have a few extra copies in my backpack. When I see friends, I make sure they get one. I also take the paper to protests to hand out. People appreciate it, because it gives them the information they want. 

Mahmoud Kasim
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

I grew up in Jerusalem before coming to New York in 1998. As a young man, I worked in a restaurant at the entrance of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The owner was hard on me when I didn’t do my job well. But without that sting, I wouldn’t be able to make my falafel the way I do today. 

I have an Indypendent newsbox in front of my business because it’s important to have this kind of newspaper. In New York City, all of the media is with the Israeli side. Thank God we have people who really show who are the Palestinians.  

We are here. We are New Yorkers — God forbid if anything happened here in New York, I’d be in the first line.

Why are we not seen? Why are our names not published?

When we say, “Free, free Palestine!” it’s like they want to ban that. But, that’s freedom of speech. We have to get our voices out; people have got to read and know. You are not going to see the articles that are in The ­Indypendent anywhere else, not in The New York Times — none of that.

Hank Dombrowski
Soho

I’m an artisanal woodworker and a rent-stabilized tenant who builds things like furniture, tables and bookshelves for people’s homes. My dad worked at a bearing factory in New Britain, Connecticut, and belonged to a union. I remember when he and the other workers would go on strike. My mom was a nurse in a hospital who was hunched over well before retirement from lifting so many patients. This bred an interest in me wanting to know what’s going on with the working class.

When I first came across The Indypendent more than 20 years ago,  I felt like I was getting more accurate information, and I liked that it was ­local. I also liked that The Indy was not interested in maintaining a docile population of readers.

With the mainstream media, no matter what station you watch or newspaper you pick up, the ways they frame issues seem the same: the stock market went up so the economy is doing great; the U.S. government bombs other countries because we’re fighting for freedom; protesters are annoying troublemakers who deserve whatever the cops do to them. I want media that goes to people who are actually experiencing the issues and talks to them. And The Indy is really good at that. 

I’ve been an Indy box steward in my neighborhood since 2018. I also take papers to the bookstore and the library nearby. I think it’s good to do whatever you can to support organizations that are fighting for your beliefs. 

Over the past couple years, I’ve been fixing up Indy news boxes that have been damaged or tagged with stickers and graffiti. For graffiti, I use lacquer-based cleaners or acetone. For stickers, I use ­solvents to dissolve the glue that binds the stickers to the box. To prevent future problems, I put silicone on the windows to make it harder for stickers to stick. I also want to experiment with waterproof axle grease. 

I’ll fix boxes on the spot when I can. If they need more work, I’ll take them up to my workshop in Connecticut. When I put a refurbished box back on the street, it says, “We’re here. This newspaper is for all of us. And we’re not going away.”

To become a neighborhood box steward, to join our box-repair working group or to help with delivering the paper, email ­­contact@indypendent.org or call (917) 426-4856. To help us keep printing papers we can distribute, go to www.indypendent.org/donate.