When the Foliage Sertoma Club recently named local business owner James “Jamey” Maltby its annual Service to Mankind award winner, he was surprised.  

I dare say no one who knows Jamey shared his surprise.  

As I chatted with Maltby over lunch at Beef O’Brady’s last week, his qualities were evident. He greeted a police officer he knew, a friend from his Bowlero bowling league sat down for a few minutes to chat, and while we talked another friend, via text, was trying to entice him into abusiness partnership.  

Maltby is the kind of person who has a thick network of relationships in the community, built over a lifetime of interactions in Apopka. The ways he has given back include supporting local sports programs, donating 1,000 oak trees and crepe myrtles to the Apopka Art & Foliage Festival and advertising for 22 years in The Apopka Chief.  

If you think advertising in the Chief helped Maltby grow his business, you would be right. But it’s also absolutely right to give him credit for it as a community service.  

In his 2000 book “Bowling Alone,” Robert D. Putnam documented the critical role of social cohesion in a healthy community. In short, communities with high trust among robust social networks have less crime, more economic vitality, better governance, and healthier, happier citizens.  

People like Maltby contribute to this not only through individual actions such as being an honest businessman and participating in a bowling league, but through supporting the local newspaper — which is another hallmark of a healthy community.  

Research has repeatedly shown that communities with a strong local news outlet have more civic engagement, less corruption, smarter development, a better business climate, and even lower municipal borrowing costs.  

Sadly, over the last two decades, many towns have seen these issues trend in the wrong direction as more than 3,500 local newspapers have closed, giving rise to increasing misinformation, polarization and a fragmented sense of community.  

Thankfully, this is not the story in Apopka. Last year we grew revenue at the Chief for the first time in more than a dozen years as we expanded circulation and made our content free for the whole community.  

We are grateful to our members, our new advertisers, and to longstanding advertisers like Maltby’s Tree Service who all make this important, community-building work possible.  

In a very real way, each of these business and resident stakeholders can lay claim to every story you read in the Chief — from the news at City Hall to the latest club events and happenings on the sports fields. So the next time you see Jamey Maltby (or any one of our other advertisers), please tell him thank you.