To our loyal readers:

Many of our long-time subscribers recall the storied tradition of teenagers on their bikes tossing the newspaper onto their front porch.

But now it’s a full-time job for adults, working out of their cars. And that’s the problem — we can no longer find enough workers who are willing to work in the wee hours of the morning, on rainy and snowy days, for a wage we can afford.

Like most Bend businesses, we are all experiencing the problems with worker shortages in many aspects of our daily lives. Just try to get an appointment for your dental hygienist, or for a repair to your car in a timely manner.

As in any business, change is inevitable and with it will come some pain. Being able to change quickly is key to meeting customer demands and growing our business.

As of last Tuesday, we have converted all our hard-copy subscribers to same-day delivery via the U.S. mail. That means for most zip codes in our area the paper will still arrive on the day it is supposed to, only via your mailbox. This ensures those who want to read our hard copy of the paper will receive one.

Those who want to read the paper earlier in the day can find it online. It is our e-edition, a replica of the paper, delivered to your email inbox by 5 a.m. at no additional charge. Newspapers are available at local convenience and grocery stores by 6 a.m.

We are changing to play to our strengths as a media company; continuing to bring local news, sports, recreational features and entertainment to Central Oregon in a timely fashion.

We take our mission seriously: to provide credible, relevant content reflective of this region we all love. To do that, we’ve got to protect the jobs of the journalists you all rely on for that content. Our core business is not delivery, it’s content. We need to keep a tight focus on our mission and using our resources wisely. That’s why we’ve made the hard decision to switch to getting you your newspapers by mail.

And we’re certainly not alone in making that decision. The trend to mail-only delivery has been an ongoing one across the country. Nearly 50% of the top 100 newspapers in America are cutting back on home delivery. Within the next five years newspaper home delivery will be a thing of the past.

The good news is that all of The Bulletin’s locally generated content, plus national sports and business news, is available to readers at bendbulletin.com and on our news app. And we’ve seen a big increase in digital-only subscriptions — now more than a third of our readers.

We made this decision knowing that not everyone would be happy with the change. We received a touching photo of our “ambassador” Ben, a golden retriever, lying on the floor of his home looking sad, with a note saying how much he’ll miss going out to the driveway for the paper every morning, but he understood.

Suffice to say, we’re focused on protecting our reporting staff and the core job of presenting the news, no matter what the format. That’s why we made the change, and that’s what we’ll continue to work hard to do.

Thank you for understanding.