Link of the Week: May 19 - 24
Gas Price Watch
Gas prices in the US now average $2.00 for the first time in history. Yet, according to May 18’s GasPriceWatch.com home page, prices vary from $1.72 (Yorktown, VA) to $3.05 (Bridgeport, CA).

To keep an eye on the prices, some creative efforts have cropped up on the Internet. First, there is GasPriceWatch.com, which uses volunteer ‘spotters’ who report on the best local prices (for this to work, there have to be local spotters – the site says it has over 92,000, including ones in WNC, though the spotters in my neighborhood haven’t reported in lately). You can use this site to find local gas stations, to (ideally) comparison shop and to check out the latest news about price changes. A somewhat similar site, GasWatch.org, chronicles their spotters’ occasional pricing reports.

Official energy statistics from the US Government can be found on a page at the US Energy Information Administration. For instance, the site reports that gas has gone up about 8 cents per gallon in the past week and about 52 cents per gallon in the past year. This whole thing reminds me that my bike needs a tune up.

Nonprofits Online
View our latest links page for nonprofits here.

Media Forum Links
The handouts that were distributed by journalists at our media forum are online. Journalist contact information is posted also, if you want to follow up with any of the people you met at the forum (or if you live in the Asheville area and want to see what you missed!).

Link/Article of the Week Archives
For your convenience, we've begun archiving past weeks' featured links and articles.

The Missing Link
Have any suggestions for us regarding next week’s link? Or is there information you seek, but you can’t find a helpful link? Let us know! If others would benefit from the information, we just may track down a link for you, or use your suggestion as Link of the Week.

Contribute Online!
It is now possible to contribute to FIRE online using your credit card. Please help us out, we can't be effective without your financial support! In the future, we will also be using similar technology, provided by PayPal, to enable you to pay for our upcoming events from our website with ease.

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Welcome to FIRE, a non-profit organization which provides community media resources to the Appalachian region. You can use the search box on this page to search our online archive of media outlets throughout the area. If you are a local journalist (or want to be), visit the "Resources for Journalists" section. You'll find resources that will improve your community reporting skills and will enable area residents to easily locate your published articles online.

FIRE's purpose is to promote citizen participation and community-based media. Please contact us if you would like to participate in our programs or if you have any feedback that will improve this Web site.