Meet your new newsletter host, La Mesa

Sharp Grossmont Hospital’s 70th anniversary is this week’s top story in La Mesa.

The community hospital may be located in La Mesa, but voters founded it to serve the growing population in East County — where many of today’s half a million residents have started life.

For a family like mine, most of whom live in Jamul, the hospital’s history is intertwined with our greatest joys, including the birth of new members, and darkest chapters, such as life-altering crises.

My grandma recollects visiting each of the five floors of the hospital in 1977 to support different family members and friends through comas to cancer. (It was a bad year.)

Last week, my mother was admitted to the newly opened Hospital for Neuroscience. She got a kick out of me writing an article about the hospital on my laptop while sitting by her bedside in that very hospital.

I’m excited that as the new La Mesa newsletter host — in addition to the primary reporter for the La Mesa Courier — I get to share more personal stories about the city I’ve made my home for the past six years.

I look forward to sharing what’s behind the articles and getting to know you as I land in your inbox each week.

For questions, comments, feedback or anything really, drop me a line at drew@sdnews.com.