Visit Your Local Patch!

If you've followed this blog for any length of time you know how much we promote community and local events. Most towns have lots of fun things going on, but it's easy to miss out if you don't know about it. Here to change all that is a relatively new website from AOL called Patch that is bringing a sense of community back to the residents. Below is a little more info from the About section of their website:

What is Patch?

Simply put, Patch is a new way to find out about, and participate in, what’s going on near you.

We’re a community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns and communities. We want to make your life better by giving you quick access to the information that’s most relevant to you. Patch makes it easy to:

• Keep up with news and events
• Look at photos and videos from around town
• Learn about local businesses
• Participate in discussions
• Submit your own announcements, photos, and reviews

Who’s Behind Patch?

Patch is run by professional editors, writers, photographers and videographers who live in or near the communities we serve, and is supported by a great team in our New York City headquarters. Patch also gets advice from our Editorial Advisory Board and from many members of the community.

We hope that our sites will strengthen communities and improve the lives of their residents, but we can’t do it without you. We’ve built Patch so that you have plenty of opportunities to comment on stories, share your opinions, post photos and announcements, and add events to the community calendar. So get to it! And if you’re a business owner who wants to be listed, just let us know.

Giving Back

You can’t truly serve a community unless you provide the help it needs most, which is why giving back is so important to us. We do it as part of our coverage — in a dedicated space that lets local charities and volunteers find each other — and with a program called “Give 5,” through which we donate free advertising space to charitable organizations and contribute our own time as volunteers.
Patch.org

The Patch.org Foundation was formed in March, 2010 to improve the quality of life in underserved communities across the globe through access to trusted local news and information.

What We Do

The Patch.org Foundation plans to partner with community foundations and other organizations to fund the operation of Patch news and information sites in communities that need them most: inner-city neighborhoods and underserved towns around the world.
What we look for

We will look for communities of 15-100k population that are underserved by media and would benefit by having access to local news and information about government, schools and business. These could be inner-city neighborhoods or distinct towns.

Although Patch is only available in select states and cities at this time, they are constantly adding to the list. If yours is not yet available keep checking back because this is quickly becoming a valuable resource to all communities!