Eatontown-Tinton Falls Patch Celebrates First Year

What a difference a year makes.

While , up until last December the extent of my knowledge of either or was limited to the fact that they were towns I drove through to get to the mall or Target.

But then I launched Eatontown-Tinton Falls Patch and quickly learned as its editor that a whole world existed off of Route 35 and the Garden State Parkway and it is populated by folks trying to make their towns a decent place to raise their families. I've met scores of ; there are volunteers in the schools happy to help raise money to send students to Washington, DC after budgets were cut; and then there are the volunteers who take pride in their town and and spend their Saturday .

Over time, I have come to learn a lot about both towns, like their rich histories, including the only documented in the state that occurred in Eatontown or the that's cropped up in the historic mill district of Tinton Falls.

In Eatontown, and each side wears his red or blue colors proudly while in Tinton Falls, which operates under a non-partisan system, parties are obscured but .

Friends and neighbors were divided in but came together for in , as well as the and the organized by the borough's recreation department. In Tinton Falls, both the and built to commemorate the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and then held to .

In the schools, we've watched a fail but also covered the eventual ratification of the and its to prevent non-miliatry students at Earle from enrolling in the district.

There's been a in Tinton Falls, an and the never ending intersection to get the lowdown on.

And while there's been a whole array of natural disasters to blow through the area since we've launched -- like a , , and -- probably one of the biggest man-made disasters to hit our towns hard has been the . While the Army installation has ceased to exist, Patch's own Shannon Winning will continue to report on the next chapter of the fort property's redevelopment.

Eatontown-Tinton Falls Patch launched last December on the heels of one of the biggest snow storms to hit this area in longer than any of us could remember. The fallout from that storm, was that borough officials learned that it was not so much the efficiency of the snow clean up that most irked residents but the . People want to know what's going on.

That's when I knew that Patch was really onto something, because our ambition is to make life easier for you and your neighbors by bringing you the information that you crave. We want to be the leader in neighborhood content and conversation, to share local knowledge and inspire people to take action.

It's been fun getting to know the gang at the and the (what can I say, I'm a sucker for a building filled with books), the and our Lions pals over at the

But I feel like I've just scratched the proverbial tip of the community iceberg and look forward to delving deeper into topics that matter to residents and also bringing you more stories about what your neighbors are up to. Because ultimately, we are all neighbors united by a desire to maintain -- and sometimes improve -- the quality of life in our towns for ourselves and for our children.