The Weekly with a Heart •
66th Year of Community Service, serving Keene, Peterborough, and the Mo
12/09/2025
September marks National Su***de Prevention Month. Here is some great information.
September marks National Su***de Prevention Month. For mental health crises, Monadnock Family Services is here to help.
MFS offers a walk-in clinic Monday through Friday from 9 am to 3 pm at 40 Avon St. in Keene that is available to everyone, not just clients.
If you are not feeling safe or need mental health help outside the clinic's hours, reach out to NH Rapid Response, available 24/7, at 833-710-6477.
11/09/2025
FYI...
The Keene Police Department has issued a special regulation for no parking on Washington Street, from Union Street to Central Square, and Court Street, from School Street to Central Square, beginning on Thursday, September 11, 2025 at 10:00 PM and ending on Friday, September 12, 2025 at 8:00 AM.
This special regulation is to facilitate the repainting of parking spaces in these areas by Public Works staff.
If you have any questions regarding this message, please call our office at (603) 352-6550.
10/09/2025
Only a few days left to register for Hospice Volunteer training! Email or call in today 💜
Friday...Friday...Friday...The first person to answer this week's mystery photo question correctly by calling 603-352-5296, starting Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. or after, will receive a certificate for $25 to The Pub. No answers can or should be left on Facebook. Phone calls only, please.
Ques. – This photo shows an electrical shop on what street in what Cheshire County community?
Good Luck Everyone!
09/09/2025
Ginger is a lovely, independent girl with a gentle heart and a soft spot for the people she trusts. While she’s not much of a snuggler, she enjoys being near her humans, accepting pets on her terms, and simply sharing space with those she feels safe around. Once she’s comfortable, you’ll see just how sweet and affectionate she can be in her own quiet way.
Ginger is looking for a calm, patient home where she can be the only pet—no other cats or dogs, please—and where any children are over the age of 12 and respectful of her need for space. With time and understanding, Ginger will gain confidence and settle into a routine where she feels secure and loved. If you’re someone who appreciates a more independent feline companion with a gentle spirit, Ginger may be the perfect match for you.
08/09/2025
08/09/2025
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08/09/2025
Outdoor Yoga is moving indoors at Aloha for the fall/winter.
Vinyasa is back!!!! Today at 5:45pm for those who work until 5:30 and for all.
Candlelight Yoga is back!!! Tonight from 7-8. Join us!!!!
08/09/2025
Walk-in Wednesdays are now weekly at the Keene & Peterborough offices! Stop in for free, no-commitment advice on services from HCS.
Looking for an appointment in Charlestown? Can't make it in person? Prefer a remote option? Call us today at 603-352-2253!
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The Weekly with a Heart
Midway through 1958, Gabriel and Barbara Shakour started publishing a small paper known as The Keene Shopper in an 8x10 room with three desks. The room also happened to be in the basement of their home. Fifty years ago, the “Shopper” was a small publication, containing nothing but advertisements placed by small, local businesses in an effort to improve their profits and educate local consumers.
Fifty years later, you hold in your hands the natural evolution of that tiny advertising publication, a business that has grown up around it, and the hard work and dedication of three generations of employees, family, and local business owners. From that one basement room sprang a weekly community newspaper that’s had its own building since the early 1960s, has increased its circulation from 14,000 in 1958 to 42,000 in 2008, and has gone from three employees then to almost 20 employees now. What was (as recently as 20 years ago) painstakingly pasted together by hand is now created, laid out, and sent to the printer on computers. Today, we publish The Monadnock Shopper News, an evolution in the name brought about by the realization that to serve our readers best, we needed to provide them with news of immediate and local importance, not just the ads for products and services from local business owners.
Just about the only thing that hasn’t changed at this paper is its overriding mission, to support and serve local small businesses. Original publisher Gabriel Shakour was himself a small-business owner (many readers will remember the Keene Drive-In Theater), and knew full well the challenges and rewards inherent in doing business in our “tiny little corner of the world.” Since its inception the Shopper News’ mission has been to be helpful to local business, not adversarial, as a great deal of daily and national media can be. Second-generation Monadnock Shopper News publisher Mitchell Shakour says it best: “We’ve stayed true to helping small businesses in the community. The success of other businesses is our entire goal, and we will do whatever is legal and ethical in the service of that goal.”
“We don’t run negative ads,” he continues. “We want to keep this a family paper, based on the higher, common values that unite the members of this community: God, motherhood, and country.”
While the growth of the paper you’re reading certainly serves as a testament to publishing a quality product that makes local residents happy by providing good news that is useful and necessary, Shakour also points out that the rise of The Monadnock Shopper News is also reflective of the rise of free community papers nationwide. As a member of several regional and national newspaper associations, he can easily quote statistics to prove the growth and value of the industry as a whole, pointing out that there are now more audited free papers in the US than there are audited paid papers, which flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that predicts doom and gloom for print media everywhere.
So thank you, loyal readers, advertisers, and community organizers for supporting the first 60 years of The Keene Shopper, The Keene Shopper News, and now The Monadnock Shopper News. Thank you to the talented, local writers who submit their columns each month as a valuable resource to residents who love to read about things like the economy, nature, alternative medicine, family, and whatever happens to be timely and interesting. Thank you to those advertisers who’ve supported this paper over years, to allow us to pay the bills to bring The Monadnock Shopper News to its readers. Thank you to the readers who send us their press releases, poems, letters to the editor, and notes to let us know we’re doing a good job. Thank you to the Monadnock Region as a whole, for being the educated, demanding, supportive area that allows a paper like ours to enjoy 60 years of being “The Weekly With A Heart.”
