Young writer creates Carmel Valley neighborhood newsletter

Tommy Davidson, an 11-year-old Carmel Valley resident, is using his love of writing to spread happy news, creating The Breakers Blurb, a newsletter for his neighborhood.

The first issue went out to the 70-home Breakers community near Sage Canyon in January. Each edition promises to share “exquisite content” and news of the interesting people living in the neighborhood: “You can count on me to give you the best news I can find,” Tommy pledged in his introductory issue.

Tommy, a fifth-grader at Sage Canyon School, has always really liked writing, filling narratives for school with lots of descriptive details. He found himself with a lot of free time during the pandemic so he wanted to do something to help keep the community informed and entertained.

Each Breakers Blurb will feature what Tommy calls a Neighbor of the Issue (NOTI), a way to spotlight someone from the neighborhood who is doing something extraordinary. Tommy had always liked his neighbor Mike Allen’s extravagant Christmas and Halloween decorations so he named him his NOTI and reached out to find out more, interviewing him for the Blurb over Zoom.

“From grinches to trains, he really shows holiday spirit and his decorations are just amazing,” Tommy wrote in his article. “I saw at least one person looking at it every day during the holidays.”

The cub reporter learned that Allen was a San Diego native and an attorney, a father of three who has lived in the Breakers for eight years. Allen takes weeks to fully complete his decorative displays, which at Halloween included a talking “It” clown on his balcony and at Christmas, a miniature village with trains.

“He is a ‘Go big or go home guy’ which is obvious after seeing his over-the-top decorations,” Tommy wrote. “Mike is a very nice guy and very deserving of the first Neighbor of the Issue for all the joy, fun, stories and holiday spirit he brings to our neighborhood.”

As Tommy is a big sports fan who plays basketball, football, golf and does “lots and lots of bike riding,” it was only natural that the Breakers Blurb would also include a sports section: The first edition of his newsletter provided the NFL playoff picture for Wild Card Weekend.

A games section in the Blurb included a word scrambler that Tommy created.

Tommy planned to print a copy for every house in the neighborhood—the printing press shifted to his grandparents’ house after the Davidson printer ran out of ink. With help from his dad, he hand-delivered the Blurb to Breakers’ doorsteps.

Positive feedback from his readers came right away, with people thanking him and giving him compliments about his work. His first subject Allen tipped off a local reporter to share the good news about an impressive young man making a difference in his community by spreading a little joy of his own.

Tommy is hoping to do a new issue every month and he is currently coming up with ideas of who and what to write about.

“I want to do something that is not related to COVID because that’s all we hear right now,” Tommy said. “Something to make people happy and get a break from all the pandemic stuff.”

Tommy’s future goals include writing as well as big dreams of playing in the NBA and becoming an architect.