Some heroes make headlines and others deliver them, reads an advertisement run to commemorate the hard work of paper carriers. Saturday, October 13, is International Newspaper Carrier day, a chance for the community to show its appreciation to neighbourhood newspaper carriers.
Delivering newspapers is often the first job a young person will have. Parents see it as a good way for children to learn about responsibility and earn a little pocket money. At the Peak, carriers have to be at least 11 years old to start delivering their own newspaper route, said Michèle Stewart, circulation director for Peak Publishing Ltd. However, she added that younger siblings often pitch in to help their older sisters and brothers to deliver their routes.
Recently, delivering papers has become an increasingly popular option for seniors and people with special needs who want to earn some extra income, but most of the Peak’s 60 carriers are still young people.
An average route on Wednesdays delivering the Peak can be around 30 homes, and Fridays delivering The Weekend Shopper with flyers can be around 80 homes, but the numbers vary widely depending on the neighbourhood.
For the Banks family, delivering the Peak has become a family affair that has been passed down from one sibling to another for years. Jill Banks is 12 years old and has had her own paper route for two years since her older sister Kelsey started grade eight and passed it down.
Courtney, who is a year younger than Kelsey, also started a paper route and like her older sister, she also gave it up when she started grade eight. Courtney passed her route to her younger brother Nolan, who was eight at the time, and the rest of her family. Because the Banks children’s routes are all in the same neighbourhood the whole family works together to get the papers out.
The demands of soccer, hockey, lacrosse and volleyball make delivering a regular route complicated, so having a younger brother or sister to occasionally stand in makes all the difference. “We would do it together,” said Jill.
They’re not your typical paper carriers, walking the streets with stuffed canvas bags smudged with newspaper ink. Jill and her siblings pile bundles into their wagon or fill plastic shopping bags with their papers and flyers. They usually walk and pull their wagon in dry weather. Their route takes them to 20 homes on Wednesday afternoons and 50 on Fridays.
“Jill usually plods down the road and Nolan zips in and delivers them. It works pretty well,” said Heather Banks, Jill and Nolan’s mother.
When the cold wet winter weather sets in, however, their delivery strategy changes. Their mother’s van, side door open, rolls slowly along the wet streets and Jill and Nolan dart back and forth from the houses trying to stay as dry as possible. “We drive and run,” said Heather.
Heather adds that Jill and Nolan are fortunate that most of the homes on their routes have carports or mail slots to deliver their papers.
The most difficult aspect of delivering papers for the Banks children was when the Weekend Shopper went from being folded to unfolded.
“When they were folded in half they were much more manageable,” Heather said. “I remember Nolan actually crying at first because they were so hard to manoeuvre. They had so many flyers they were loose and floppy.”
Nolan, however, came up with a way to deal with folding unfolded papers. “I usually bang it with my head,” said Nolan. Sometimes though there are just too many fliers so the only thing to do is to put them through the mail slot individually, said Heather.
It usually takes the Banks family a little over an hour on Friday afternoons to get all 50 of their homes delivered and Jill and Nolan are eying up another route to double the number of papers they deliver. The paperboy in the route next to them is in grade 12 and they hope that he’ll give it up soon.
“Their money goes straight into their bank account and they save it,” said Heather.
Although Jill is going into grade eight next year, she says that she’ll hang onto her paper route as long as she can, “because I want to buy a car,” she said. Plus, her sister Sarah is too young to take it over, added Heather.
