While we must grudgingly accept the new normal here in our community for at least the next few weeks, we are determined to make the best of it. So, please be aware that everyone here at Up & Coming Weekly, Kidsville News! and Women’s View Magazine maintains our commitment to providing our readers in Fayetteville, Fort Bragg and Cumberland County with local news, views, arts and helpful, uplifting information that celebrates and defines the community while informing and entertaining our readers. Attitude is everything, and we want to provide local content that gets you joyfully through the week.

We plan to continue our normal publishing and distribution schedule for all publications. We even added a new dimension by partnering with and supporting local restaurants and eateries. See page 22. These businesses are providing U&CW newspapers with their takeout orders and including it with their delivery orders. It is the perfect solution for those who want the publication but are not out and about. We are advertising and promoting the participating businesses free of charge and allowing them to insert their menus into the publications. It’s a win-win for both the businesses and the community. So, if you have interesting news or stories about what’s going on in your neighborhood, keep us posted. We want to know what is happening in your world. Send your information to editor@upandcomingweekly.com or HopeMills@upandcomingweekly.com. 

Truth, honesty and knowledge are power for us all, and as we spend less time in face-to-face dialogue and interaction with each other, free weekly newspapers like Up & Coming Weekly help maintain that sense of community we all seek.

No doubt about it, we need to share the good news with each other so that while we are honestly aware of the challenges everyone is facing, we can still uplift each other and share our joys, successes and accomplishments.

Accuracy matters more than ever.

Because the COVID-19 phenomenon is the biggest crisis — and the most talked-about event of our time — it is also the least accurately talked-about event of our time. We encourage you to vet all your news sources and go to and trust only firsthand primary sources of information like these:

For Cumberland County information, visit co.cumberland.nc.us/COVID-19 and https://coronavirus-response-cumberlandgis.hub.arcgis.com/.

For details about COVID-19 — symptoms, preventative measures and recommendations — go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at CDC.gov.

For worldwide and national statistics on the numbers of cases and fatalities, visit www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/, which aggregates data and links directly to its primary sources in each country.

A final word — tomorrow will belong to those who make the best use of their time today. Change, even unwelcome change, brings new and exciting opportunities. New ways of doing things will always present themselves. Those who use this stress-laden and uncomfortable time to observe the changes, resist panicking and prepare for their future will be far more likely to survive and find prosperity when this crisis is over.

On behalf of everyone here at Up & Coming Weekly, stay healthy, stay vigilant, and never allow yourself to become complacent. Continue to market and promote your products, services and organizations, for they will be desperately needed very soon. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t believe everything you see online. Stick with sources you know and trust.

We wish good health to all our readers and advertisers, and we look forward to the day we can shake hands again and begin to seize the new opportunities that await us on the other side of this crazy crisis.

Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly!