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
What We Cover
Comprehensive and trusted local coverage of Lorton, VA. News and events, business listings, discussions, announcements, photos and videos.
Meet Your Local Patch Team
Shawn Drury, Contributor, Editor
Prior to becoming the editor of Lorton Patch Shawn Drury was working as a freelance writer in the Upcountry region of South Carolina. He's written about many topics, but his favorites are New Media and the Environment.
He was born and raised in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area (yes, from The Office) and has been fortunate enough to do a lot of traveling in his lifetime. He has an English degree and a teaching degree from Cedar Crest and Muhlenberg Colleges, respectively. He worked as a high school English and Journalism teacher for just about four years before realizing that he'd rather be writing than teaching it.
He coached high school basketball for nine years, worked for a very large Fortune 500 company with thousands of employees, worked for a small, family-owned company with just a few, led a writer's workshop and once placed in the Top 10 in a Waterslide Marathon.
He loves indie music and movies and appreciates people who are devoted to their craft, no matter what it is. It won't take much effort to get him to admit he's a film snob.
He's been published in Profile Magazine, Energy International Quarterly, Green Building & Design and Edible Upcountry to name the most recent. He's worked for The Scranton Times and The Doylestown Intelligencer.
Timothy Follos, Contributor, Editor
A native of the Adirondack Mountains in far northern New York, Tim is a third-generation writer.
In 2002 Tim moved to Washington, D.C. to attend college and in 2003 he began working for Express, a D.C.-area daily. Most of Tim's work between 2003 and 2010 appeared in Express or on its affiliated websites.
Tim studied Government, Politics, English and History at Georgetown University and received his BA in 2004.
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 look forward to meeting you, hearing your stories, and being your trusted source for community-specific information.
If you see us around town, don’t be afraid to say hi and tell us what you want to see on Patch!
Where You Come In
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.