The Jersey Shore rallies for 11,000-plus points

Welcome to the real Jersey Shore. Where it's not about punching girls or naming your abs, but about a real community rallying around a good cause. Toms River East came bursting out of the gates for Walk the Walk's first Eastern Bracket challenge, showing us their DNA in a cool, diverse and rootsy way. And through some creative networking methods, they already had 3500 points by the end of the first day.

Virginia Beach's Kellam High School shook it off and came back hard, but Jersey proved to be too big of a state for them. Since Toms River was the only school in their district to participate, they had full support from all the schools in their area. "It's really great to see us all come together to succeed in something we have truly become passionate about," says Toms River student and WTW participant Gianna Gearity. "Raiders love showing their spirit, and we intend to represent the entire state of New Jersey with the same enthusiasm we have towards our school."

By week's end, Toms River finished ahead of Kellam with a whopping score of 11,674 to 9367 at the time of writing. Both schools nearly doubled the Western Bracket, which tells us that the Eastern connections run deep and wide. "We're just doing everything we can to have a good time and get everyone we know involved," says Tom Rivers' Jonathan Carbonaro. "I think we've done a really good job at representing the real Jersey Shore."

Step aside, Snookie. Toms River is ready to take over.

Go to www.hurley.com/wtw to see the Northwest Bracket's Challenge No. 1 submissions. Voting is open now!