What you’re reading is The E’ville Eye’s 500th post. To appreciate how far we’ve come, check out our first.

As the story goes, after being a victim of a violent crime, I decided to channel my anger and frustration into helping prevent this from happening to other residents by spotlighting criminal trends. At first I just wanted to aggregate crime news into one spot … until I realized something. There was no news. Besides a couple political opinion blogs and an occasional story from the mainstream media, news in Emeryville was largely neglected. Our City had important stories, but nobody was telling them.

Despite having almost no literary skills, I put myself out there and I began writing. Tentatively at first until I slowly found my voice. Over four years and nearly a half a million page views later, we’ve grown into the #1 news source in our tiny city. Along the way, I’ve recruited some contributors and guest bloggers to cover other topics and provide additional perspectives. We’ve gotten support from advertisers, we’ve received accolades, we’ve made some friends (and a few enemies), we’ve been referred to as “an asset to the community” and “indispensable” by some flattering readers.

I still feel that local news for Emeryville is at a crossroads. I’ve taken The E’ville Eye as far as I can personally take it with the resources and free time I have. I still strongly believe in the need for local news in our town, but if we’re going to take this any further, we’ll need your help. My goal is to cover as much of our city as possible, provide a community hub and a source of pride for residents that we’ve dubbed “E’villains”.

Nobody covers the breadth of subject matter as The E’ville Eye. Crime, Human Interest stories, political insight, history, new establishments, development, exclusive interviews with city leaders, breaking news through social media, conversation starting editorials … we’ve advocated for those without a voice in the city, initiated dialogue that might not otherwise be discussed and helped make a dent in public policy.

If you value the spectrum of topics and commitment to covering Emeryville we provide, please consider making a contribution of whatever you can spare. Starting at only $2 per month, if we could get even a fraction of our readers to commit to making a recurring donation, I feel we could perpetuate this. If not, local news in our city could easily die.

This Holiday, please consider “supporting local” in the most direct way possible; by supporting your community through local news.

Oh, and we’re always looking for freelance contributors!

Happy Holidays from me, Fiona and all the contributors at The E’ville Eye Community News.

-Rob Arias

(your neighbor and E’ville Eye editor)