Welcome to issue #53!! of Trail Mix, a weekly newsletter that’s about the people, places, history, and happenings in Southeastern Arizona.

Happy 1-Year Birthday again to Trail Mix! A huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone who entered our giveaway last week and took the time to share your favorite issues from the past year. Reading through your replies was the absolute best gift—hearing which stories brought a smile to your face, introduced you to a new local spot, or made this growing valley feel a little bit more like home reminds me why we started this in the first place.

A massive congratulations to Kristin, the lucky winner of the $100 local gift card!

I am so deeply grateful for this incredible community and every single one of you who opens these emails, reads along, and supports local storytelling. We’ve shared so many wonderful moments over this past year, and I am genuinely excited for what’s ahead.

~ Kimberly
Publisher of Trail Mix

And now for this week’s story about another local creator who is just as passionate about connecting our community. ⤵️

We like to pretend that media is a zero-sum game, don’t we? That if you’re reading this, you can’t possibly be reading that. That digital and print are locked in some grand, high-stakes duel for the modern attention span.

I’ll admit, when you’re building something from scratch in a town that’s growing as fast as Vail, where dirt roads turn into subdivisions overnight, and new rooftops pop up like desert wildflowers after a monsoon, it’s easy to look around and wonder who else is claiming a piece of the pie.

Then you meet Sheri Esparza.

Sheri is the editor and publisher behind Vail Neighbors, a gorgeous print magazine that lands in mailboxes across our valley every month. I run a digital newsletter. On paper, we’re technically competitors. But in reality? We’re just two women sitting on the exact same side of the table, driven by the exact same purpose: building something meaningful because we saw a deep need for it, and helping this fast-expanding valley feel like a place where you actually know your neighbors.

Sheri and I both stepped onto this path right around the same time a year ago. And when you talk to her, you realize very quickly that her origin story isn't about market share or business metrics. It started with a feeling almost every transplant to Southern Arizona knows: moving here from California, looking at the wide-open sky, and feeling entirely, painfully disconnected.

So, she made a deal with herself: give Vail one solid year of real intention with a simple goal. Love where you live.

"You can’t love where you live if you don't love the people who live in it," Sheri told me. So she took everything she knew about marketing, said yes to publishing her first solo magazine, made a hilarious rookie mistake naming the magazine North Vail Neighbors (a faux pas our locals gently corrected real fast), and started knocking on doors.

She wasn't looking for standard corporate soundbites. She wanted to know why a pool technician started his business, or why the family down the block has a standing Friday night tradition where they hurl popcorn at each other in the living room.

That’s the secret, isn’t it? In a world suffering from what Sheri calls a trust recession, where AI generates newsfeeds, social media pushes polished highlight reels, and noise replaces real interaction. We are starving for the authentic stuff.

"With print, you have something tangible in your hand that connects you to the families on the cover, the nonprofits, the artists, the teachers," Sheri explained. "While the rest of the world hits you with bad news, my goal is to show up as happy mail. It’s about the neighbor down the street, or the business owner who services your pool—things happening right where we live and take our kids to the ball field."

That tangible connection produces real magic. Sheri shared a story about a neighbor named Timothy who was featured in an issue. A few weeks later, he pulled up to the local landfill, and four women in the payment office looked up, held up his issue of the magazine, and asked, "Hey, famous guy, can we get an autograph?" That is what genuine local media does. It turns everyday neighbors into celebrated community members.

When I asked Sheri about the most rewarding part of her job, she didn't talk about numbers or page counts. "It’s seeing someone see themselves through the lens of a neighbor," she said. "When they get excited or have tears in their eyes after reading their story... that is everything."

Sheri told me that when she arrived, her neighbors were already loving where they lived. She just hadn't met them yet. "They're families coming together for movie nights. They notice the short hello from a stranger, the bright stars, the roadrunner darting across the yard, the monsoon rolling in. They didn't rush past any of it. They chose to be here. And they mean it."

What Sheri has created over this past year is a beautiful reminder of why local storytelling matters so much. As our corner of Arizona continues to evolve, having people like her dedicated to keeping us tethered to one another is a true gift.

Be sure to keep an eye out for future issues of Vail Neighbors landing in your mailbox each month. It’s the kind of happy mail you’ll actually look forward to opening.

The heartbeat of Vail, Rita Ranch, and Corona de Tucson is in our events. Dive into the Vail Community Calendar. It’s where you go to hunt down that hyper-local roadside sourdough pop-up, map out your Saturday morning neighborhood yard sales, or find a local gathering that actually sounds fun.

Got something coming up? Put it on the map. I don't want this to just be a list you read (and as a one-woman show, I can’t possibly keep up with what’s happening in every business ‘round town). I want you to run it. Embrace it. Make it your own where you get FREE advertising for your event.

Whether you are hosting a block party, a pop-up farm stand, a food truck night, a charity car wash, or a live music gig, it is 100% free to add your event to the grid.

P.S. Want to reach Vail? This newsletter lands directly in the inboxes of local residents who love and live in our community. If you're a business owner looking to get in front of an engaged, local audience, let’s talk advertising.