Thank You, Toms River Patch Readers, For Helping Us Grow

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Nov. 22, 2010. Thanksgiving was approaching. Todd Frazier was six months away from making his Major League Baseball rookie debut. And Toms River was still reeling from one of the biggest scandals ever to hit the township: the Michael Ritacco bribery case.

And on Nov. 22, 2010, the Toms River Patch was launched. We're coming up on the eighth anniversary of that launch, and as we do, we wanted to take a moment to thank you, our readers, for being part of this journey. We appreciate your visits and contributions, and we want you to know we take nothing for granted here. Thank you for helping us to grow and thrive.

In August, the Toms River Patch recorded 615,607 visitors. We know many of you are right in Toms River, or are peeking in at your hometown from afar, and you're spending a lot of time with us. We also know some of our Toms River Patch readers are from neighboring towns. That figure — compiled and verified through Google Analytics — includes readers on desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile and our app, and our visitors often access Patch on several devices over the month.

Here are 10 of the most-read articles on the Toms River Patch in August.

• Toms River Parents' Petition: Give Back Our School Aid
• Toms River Schools: Reserves Fill Hole, Devastating Cuts Loom
• Toms River To Put Armed Police In Schools
• Family, Authorities Seek Clues To 1990 Death Of Beachwood Man
• See How Toms River Burger King Worker Inspired Hockey Team
• Search On For Severed Arm After Toms River Motorcycle Crash: PD
• Toms River Dental Office Damaged By Blaze (Video)
• Toms River Boy, 4, Hit And Killed By Ice Cream Truck
• Toms River Moving Company Cited By State For Lacking License
• 9 Charged With DUI At Route 37 Checkpoint: Authorities

Got a news tip? I'm Karen Wall, your local editor. I've lived in Ocean County for nearly 40 years, graduated from Brick Township High School (sorry, Indians and Mariners fans!) and have raised my family in the county. Reporting on the community, and for my neighbors, is a role I take very seriously. I welcome your tips, your ideas and questions; you can send them my way at karen.wall@patch.com.

We also encourage you, our readers, to post on Patch. You can easily to sign up for a free user profile. As a Patch user, you can post articles, events, jobs, and announcements. The Toms River Patch calendar is a great place to have your event seen by thousands of people. And the "rules of Patch" are easy to follow: "no abusive content, no commercial spam, keep it local."

You've probably seen our calls to join the Patch Mayor program. Well, we're still looking for someone who loves Toms River and would love to share their thoughts on what's happening in town. If you'd like to share your love of Toms River and add your voice to Patch, you can sign up here.

Here's a few more things to know about the Toms River Patch. More than 1,200 new email subscribers have joined Toms River Patch this year, boosting our email list to more than 10,000 daily subscribers. (If you're not receiving our emails, click here to sign up). And 2,232 Toms River fans joined our Facebook page this year, too. We're about 1,250 fans shy of 30,000. If you haven't liked our page yet, please give it a try. If you're already on the page, please share with a friend. Reaching 30,000 fans by the end of 2018 would be a huge milestone for us.

If you own a local business and are interested in getting your message on Toms River Patch or our nearby Patches, please visit the page and tell us what you need. One of our sales reps will be in touch.

Here's another fun fact about Patch: Did you know that Patch is among the 100 most trafficked websites in the United States? Patch ranks 91st on the most viewed websites in the country, according to Alexa. Toms River Patch is part of a broad network, with 100 Patches in New Jersey and more than 1,200 across the United States. That's a lot of local news! Many news websites are limiting access to free articles, but Patch articles and events by our journalists and our users are always free to view.

We're thrilled you've made Toms River Patch a part of your life. Thank you so much for your support and readership.

Try The Patch App

We've taken the best of Patch and packed it into a lightning fast, super-clean app that is loaded with features users have told us they want. If you haven't tried the app, give it a try. You can get the latest local news sent straight to your iPhone or iPad home screen on the free Patch app for iOS or the Android app.

Toms River's Huddy Park, photo by Karen Wall, Patch staff