Arianna Huffington Invites Local Leaders to Write for Patch

Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group, invited local officials across the country Wednesday “to bear witness through online media” and to help tell the stories of their communities.

Speaking at the 80th Annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., Huffington invited local officials across the country to write for their local Patch or to contribute to the Huffington Post.

“We’d love to amplify your amazing voices,” Huffington said. “Because you know better than anyone else what is happening for your own community.”

Local officials can help start “a national conversation that can touch our hearts, awaken our empathy and expand our circles of concern,” Huffington said.

Together, the Huffington Post and Patch have more than 1,500 reporters and see more than 135 million unique visitors per month, she said.

Such a network allows mayors and other local elected officials from jurisdictions large and small to share what they are doing with millions, Huffington said.

“We need to change the conversation, and put the spotlight on our abundance of talents and resources that are going underutilized,” she said.

America shouldn’t wait for a natural disaster or other external threat before mobilizing to combat poverty or help those less fortunate, Huffington said.

Highlighting the talents and resources that may be underused at the local level is one way to encourage people to tap into them, she said.

Huffington told the conference that 2012 "is the year where we recognize that it is at the local level that solutions are going to come from."