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Q&A: New magazine aims to highlight the beauty of Peoria

Construction Beauty Magazine
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Peoria has a new magazine in circulation geared towards women.

Student Reporter Olivia Streeter talked with Construction Beauty Magazine editors Elizabeth Hinnen and Mary Delgado about the magazine's vision for the women of Peoria.

MARY DELGADO: Elizabeth is really the visionary behind the magazine. The magazine came about because she wanted something really beautiful for Peoria women. And she wanted something to unite us something that was optimistic and positive and beautiful that you could hold in your hands that would remind you of where you came from, why you're here, and kind of the excitement that our community offers to its people.

And it was really important for her to have something tangible in your hands, like, so many people said, Why are you doing a print nice thing, just do it online, it's cheaper, it's faster, it's all these things. And she was very determined. And she was like, 'Listen, we want something in our hands, we want to see something beautiful. We want to read from the people, from our neighbors, from our business owners from our own community. '

And so many magazines are national, and we get to hear all about celebrities lives or these big chain stores. But we don't know what's in our own backyard. We want to put that in the hands of our people.

ELIZABETH HINNEN: I think the other thing too, that was really important to us was, you know, anytime anybody is new to Peoria, you know, that Peorians... their first response is 'well What, What brought you here? Why would you move to Peoria?' And it was just so sad, you know, I think we really wanted our community to just kind of really, really fall in love with where they live, and show them the reasons why, and really focusing on what we have to offer in our area in a way that's interesting and beautiful.

OLIVIA STREETER: What do you envision to have content-wise?

MARY DELGADO: It's a really great question. So the content, we wanted to appeal to a wide variety of women. So we have everything from beauty and fashion, skincare and makeup to the restaurants opening or the shows that are happening around town, kind of the events, and everything that's happening here. We have an amazing writer who focuses on the history of Peoria. And we say like you don't know where you're going if you don't know where you came from. Right? So she's telling us all these amazing stories about Peoria that even though we've grown up there, we are just kind of disconnected from. So she's reminding us of who those people are that came before us, and what they did, and how they built up this city into what it is today. And that also kind of coaxes us on like, well, what are we going to build, we're going to build something beautiful, right? So that's our tagline, let's build something beautiful.

ELIZABETH HINNEN: And our goal was to, you know, that any woman of any age, but you could pick something up and find something that would resonate with you something that you would enjoy, you know, if you're 20 or 50, or 90. And our hope is that it could appeal to any woman of any age.

Olivia Streeter is an intern at WCBU. The Illinois State University student joined WCBU in 2020.