Getting more people involved in their local hometown paper was one of the goals when I first took the reins of the Times papers four years ago.

And I think we’ve been quite successful in encouraging people to send us “good news” information about a variety of subjects. Kindness in Real Life, Friends & Neighbors, Let’s Go, Be An Angel and other categories introduced over the past few years have been effective in getting useful news out to the public that surprises and inspires.

But we want more. So this summer we are making our pages available to a wide range of new voices, most of them local college and high school students.

We have a new intern from Mitchell College, Hannah Simpson, who just started writing for us, and I am expecting up to a half dozen others from East Lyme and Lyme-Old Lyme high schools to join her this summer, many from Jeff Beale’s journalism class at ELHS.

It’s not too late to add your voice to the mix, no matter what age you are. Several regular contributors to the Times are in their 60s and beyond. It’s as simple as taking out a pen and a pad (or a recording device) and asking a few questions of an interesting person.

The Lives of Our Times is a recent outreach in which we have asked readers to send us stories about friends, relatives and associates. If you want to know more about an interesting friend or relative, what better way than to sit down and ask some probing questions?

If you need some advice to get going, please reach out to me at l.howard@theday.com or 860-964-0597. Best day to call is Friday!

Lee Howard is The Day’s community editor, responsible for nine weekly newspapers.