Would you be ready if there were an emergency? Be prepared: assemble an emergency supply kit, make your emergency plans, stay informed, and get involved in helping your family, your business, and your community be ready for emergencies.

Throughout September, there will be activities across the country to promote emergency preparedness. More than 3,000 organizations - national, regional, and local public and private organizations - are supporting emergency preparedness efforts and encouraging all Americans to take action.    

For more detailed information, please click here  

More resource info: 
California Emergency Management Agency 

You can join the effort by following four steps:

• Get a Kit 
• Make a Plan
• Be Informed 
• Get Involved 

September 2011 marks the eighth annual National Preparedness Month, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. One goal of Homeland Security is to educate the public about how to prepare for emergencies, including natural disasters, mass casualties, biological and chemical threats, radiation emergencies, and terrorist attacks.

Gateway Neighborhood Center is a hybrid gym/community center that Trinity Church, in partnership with Sunnyvale Challenge Team, launched this spring in North Sunnyvale. One of the lead Gateway programs is Sunnyvale Boxing Club which was in high gear this summer with 50 kids working out almost everyday. Their highlight was August 13 when more than 200 family and friends packed Gateway to watch 20 kids and a few young men and women experience their first bouts. "It is awesome to see the families come together at the gym. We have brothers, sisters, cousins, moms and dads. They are here getting fit, making friends, truly strengthening their community," says Community Services Officer Dori Fontaine.

Beyond learning discipline and getting in great physical shape, the boxing kids are now recruiting others to help them knock out litter through four neighborhood clean-ups on Oct. 1 in the Columbia, San Miguel, Orchard Park and Mathilda/Maude neighborhoods. If you would like to help, sign-up sheets are available at the gym.

Gateway launched another core program, Gateway2Success, an after school tutoring program for North Sunnyvale students coordinated by Reach Potential Movement. Students receive snacks, homework help and reading time with tutors along with daily reading, writing and oral language skill instruction from a credentialed teacher. "We're amazed by the tremendous response we're seeing from high school students to adults of all ages who want to tutor once a week," notes Rob Schulze, Reach Potential's Executive Director. More information about becoming a tutor and Gateway2Success can be found at  http://www.reachpotential.org/  

 Here at the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety we take pride in keeping our communities and our children safe. The rapidly changing and evolving online community has presented law enforcement challenges in how to handle the ever so frequent problems occurring in cyberspace. Cyberbullying, sexting, inappropriate cell phone use, and social media websites are daily issues in our schools. It became clear there was a need for law enforcement to get involved in online safety programs. The challenge was finding one that was the right fit.

On August 18, the Public Safety Crime Prevention Unit hosted the first ever train-the-trainer course for Cyber Bullying & Digital Media Issues.This is the only course approved by the Peace Officers Standards in Training in the entire State of California.  Public Safety teamed with Yahoo! to develop the curriculum that will be used in all agencies in the Bay Area and eventually throughout the state. 

The training was held at the Yahoo! Sunnyvale campus for over 50 School Resource Officers representing 19 bay area agencies. Instructors included members of DPS, Santa Clara County Juvenile Probation, Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office and members from Yahoo! staff.The class was very successful and requests are already being received for more training dates from allied agencies.The officers who participated in the class will now take the information back to their agency and host classes for their communities, like DPS is currently doing in our community.

The overall message of all the programs is how to make smart choices online and how to create and maintain a positive digital reputation. For more information please contact: Public Safety Officer Holly Lawrence at (408)-730-7146.  

Jill was a vibrant, talented young girl, just 15 years old and a Freshman at Los Gatos High School.  She became distraught when an embarrassing picture of herself was sent electronically and placed on an internet site.Cyber bullying and other pressures intensified her feelings of despair and hopelessness.Without feeling she had anyone to turn to for help she took her own life on March 15, 2009. 

After Jill's death, a non-profit organization named CASSY, Counseling and Support Services for Youth, was embedded in Los Gatos High School.  CASSY quickly became a heavily utilized resource at the school helping students, faculty and families through pressures and difficulties, all free of charge.  CASSY's mission since 2009 has been "to de-stigmatize mental health services and make supporting students' social and emotional wellbeing the norm in our local schools."  CASSY is trying to expand their reach to all local schools. 

On August 27, Jill's Ride for Hope was held at Los Gatos High School to raise funds for CASSY and help them reach more students at the locals schools.  Members from DPS attended to help provide needed traffic control assistance and show support for CASSY and the fight against Cyber Bullying.  NRO Holly Lawrence developed the first course approved by the governing body of police standards and training in the State of California to train police officers to provide instruction to fight against cyber bullying.  This course was based on the life lost by Jill and how to prevent future losses.  Sunnyvale DPS is the leading agency in California providing instruction to other agencies to fight against cyber bullying.   

Lt. Scott Simpson, PSO's Brian Gantt and Greg Othon, Lt. Tracy Hern, Polly and Rob Nabor (Jill's parents), NRO's Holly Lawrence and Todd Fekete, PSO's Tim Macierz and James Perrone and SCPD Officer Steve Selberg.

Every year during the two weeks surrounding Labor Day weekend, Sunnyvale DPS participates in a multi-jurisdictional effort to educate and enforce drinking and driving laws.  Thanks to a grant offered through the California Office of Traffic Safety, Sunnyvale DPS was able to coordinate and conduct a DUI checkpoint on August 26. 

The purpose of the DUI checkpoint is to educate and bring awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving.  At this checkpoint, hundreds of people were contacted and approximately 160 drivers were randomly screened to determine if they possessed valid California Driver's Licenses and to check their alcohol sobriety.  Of those contacted, two drivers were arrested for drunk driving, four drivers were issued citations for not having valid California Driver's Licenses and two were issued citations for not obeying the stop sign. 

This event was made possible by the participants, which included the Sunnyvale Traffic Unit, Explorers, Cadets, Community Service Officers and the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.  Over the course of the Labor Day Campaign, DPS spent 200 hours of directed patrol operations designed to detect and arrest impaired drivers. Sunnyvale officers recorded a total of 29 arrests for DUI and an additional arrest was made for a DUI warrant.