AmericanTowns Launches Initiative to Help Local Governments, Institutions and Organizations Share Community Information Online

Community Collaborations Will Reduce Scheduling Conflicts And Increase Coordination and Participation

FAIRFIELD, CT – Oct. 10, 2008 – Community website specialist AmericanTowns.com today launched an initiative to help towns across the US reduce scheduling conflicts for major events and better inform local residents about important local initiatives. AmericanTowns will work with town governments, institutions such as libraries and schools, and local non-profit organizations to create Community-wide Calendars and shared local websites that bring together all the good initiatives and events in a community. The calendars and websites will be hosted and managed by AmericanTowns at no cost to any of the participants.

The new AmericanTowns community initiative is modeled on the recent success of its projects for Ossining, New York and Franklin, Massachusetts. Recently, the Ossining Public Library, Ossining School District, Town of Ossining and Village of Ossining collaborated with AmericanTowns.com to create a shared “Ossining Community Calendar.”

“The goal of the new Ossining Community Calendar is to help all community organizations reduce scheduling conflicts, especially on their major events,” explained Martha Dodge, Supervisor for the Town of Ossining.

“The Ossining Community Calendar also provides a useful shared resource for local residents,” added Bob Minzesheimer, board member, Ossining Public Library. “The more we each know about the good efforts of other organizations in the community, the more we can be supportive.”

As part of its work with the Town of Franklin, AmericanTowns created and now maintains the online directory of local community organizations, a Community-wide Calendar and other community information at AmericanTowns.com -- freeing town officials’ time to focus on essential municipal needs.

“Ossining and Franklin each set a great example of collaboration for public benefit,” said Ted Buerger, chairman of AmericanTowns. “Our on-line initiative will help other towns reduce scheduling conflicts, inform residents what groups are doing, and encourage community participation, support and collaboration.”

All community websites hosted by AmericanTowns can be easily accessed by local non-profit organizations to post events and announcements at no charge. These organizations can also acquire passwords and free listings at AmericanTowns.com, and then easily share community events or other news -- from big fundraisers to monthly meetings.

Any community leader interested in developing a collaborative initiative for their town should contact Jim Maglione, AmericanTowns’ co-president of Community, at jim@americantowns.com.

About AmericanTowns

AmericanTowns is the leader in collecting and organizing community information for local residents, empowering them to find and share the best local information for their town. For every town in America, AmericanTowns has created a "community webspace" that brings together the nation's most extensive online database of community events, community groups, news, maps, local insights, videos, local resources and special tools for organizations. Local residents can add to, comment on, or otherwise edit this content. Dedicated to connecting citizens, community organizations and locally-focused businesses, AmericanTowns has featured more than 10 million community events in the last 12 months, and offers powerful tools to help more than 120,000 listed community organizations interact more effectively with local citizens. The fastest growing site in the "hyper-local" space, AmericanTowns.com is headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut. Visit www.AmericanTowns.com.