Unfortunately, for a lot of stuff, there just isn’t a replacement from Reddit currently. Your best bet would be trying to find other local news sources and follow them individually, likely with an RRS.

That said, if you have the time and energy, the only way Lemmy will grow is with active users. If you join one or more of the more active Lemmy communities (likely the one Sunshine suggested) and try to post when you can, that goes a long way to either keeping these smaller communities alive, or helping them grow.