National Mentoring Month exists to highlight the impact that caring adults have on youth through mentoring. When you were a child or young adult, was there someone in your life
 - a teacher, neighbor, relative, coach, friend, or boss - who encouraged you, showed you the ropes, and helped you become who you are today? That person was a mentor to you.

You don't need special skills to be a mentor, just an ability to listen and to offer friendship, guidance and encouragement to a young person. You will be amazed by how much you will get out of the experience. The Department of Public Safety and Reach Potential Movement are teaming up with our public schools to provide mentors for Sunnyvale youth.  To learn more or to apply to be a mentor, please visit http://rpmovement.org/mentoring/

For the past several weeks, the Neighborhood Enhancement Action Team (NEAT) area of Helen Avenue, Tamarack Lane and surrounding streets, including Ponderosa Park, has been repeatedly hit with graffiti. The similar tagging occurred on fences, buildings, utility boxes and benches.

In response, the NEAT Street Team went door to door asking area residents to keep a lookout for graffiti taggers and to report any suspicious activity to the NEAT Street Team. Within two weeks, enough leads were generated to obtain a description of the tagger and pin-point an area in which he may live. His information was given to the area's Department of Public Safety (DPS) patrol squad, who then used school records to identify the suspect. With the help of local school officials, the suspect was interviewed and confessed to the taggings.

Individually, it would have been difficult for any one person or group to identify the graffiti suspect. This is another good example of how NEAT - working together with residents, schools, and City staff - were able to resolve an unsightly community issue.

During the month of January, the Neighborhood Resource Officers conducted qualifiers for the annual Basketball Shoot-off for all seventh and eighth grade students in Sunnyvale. Competitors had 60 seconds to make as many baskets as possible from designated spots around the key. Finalists will be selected to represent each school in the following divisions: Seventh Grade Girls, Seventh Grade Boys, Eighth Grade Girls and Eighth Grade Boys.  

The winner of each division will receive a Wii game system provided by the Sunnyvale Elks Lodge. All finalists receive a T-shirt and tickets to a University of Santa Clara Women's Basketball game the following day, where the winners will be honored.