young & free press features post-secondary students covering local news and events and starting new community-building projects in southern Ontario
Headquartered in St. Thomas, the business is run by consultant Andrew Gunn, who is the owner and general editor, along with four young entrepreneurs — Avelea Thorne, Hayden Miller-Cluckie, Maddie King, and Madison Comfort. Together, the young & free press team cover news and events in southwestern Ontario, and explore arts and culture, food and drink, local businesses, urban issues, and much more! All this happens from the youth perspective (with a bit of a subversive streak, always pushing for new ideas and opportunities).
So, how did all this start? Well, Andrew volunteered with a Thames Valley District School Board program in 2017-18, and had the task of connecting students to real-life businesses and experiences in the London & St. Thomas area. Along the way, he noticed the decline of local news and event coverage, the lack of interest in community stuff amongst the students, and decided to challenge the students to develop a media platform in which teenagers could be the journalists. Three high school students from St. Thomas took on the challenge — Maddie King, Jenn Klassen, and Alex Popen — and soon a fourth student, Emily Stage, joined the group. The community embraced the idea, sponsors came on board, and suddenly the concept looked more like a private-sector business than a student project.
Late in August 2018, the team decided to take the leap, develop the young & free press brand, and get to work as journalists and entrepreneurs! Andrew made the media outlet a division of his consulting firm, which focusses on working with donors and sponsors to fund, manage and sustain innovative community projects. All the teenagers involved really embraced their roles, and along with reporting on news and events, they assist also as ‘youth consultants’ on a variety of initiatives around the region.
Right now, there is a lot of talk about the need to ‘engage youth’ at the local level, and this is exactly what we have done! Over the past few years, our team has coordinated well over $3M in community projects, including developing new parks, murals, educations programs, events and environmental sustainability initiatives. We have worked in collaboration with the Downtown London BIA, Tourism London, Museum London, the Downtown Simcoe BIA, Railway City Tourism in St. Thomas, Southwest Ontario Tourism, Farm Credit Canada, Fanshawe College, Covent Garden Market, the Forest City Film Festival, London Children’s Museum, Thames Valley District School Board and other organizations to promote businesses and events and develop new projects in communities around the region.
Follow along on our Instagram page for updates on all our activities!
Andrew Gunn & Maddie King of young & free press and Andrew Gunn Consulting Inc.