The San Juan Safe Communities Initiative announces our You Matter Mentoring Card program.  The program promotes 12 High School Seniors with diverse interests who are committed to living drug and alcohol free to serve as mentors for children in the community.  Whether their interests are sports, FFA, photography, music, chess, computers, or any other positive interest, the Initiative would like to promote them as positive role models for children in our community through a trading card program.

The Successful candidates will be featured on trading cards distributed to elementary children throughout the county.  They will attend assemblies at local schools and talk to the students about their goals and commitment to stay drug and alcohol-free, and to sign their trading cards. They will also make appearances at various schools during lunch and recess periods as well as making appearances at local businesses to sign cards. 

The program is designed to promote real world role models for children. Candidates for the program will be asked to sign a contract to remain drug, tobacco, alcohol and legal trouble free for their senior year, and will be given a $1000 scholarship

It is the desire of this committee to have a student representative from each of the area high schools, however; selection will not be based solely on this.  All applicants must meet required criteria and will be chosen from a pool of all eligible students.

Prior to completing the application each student should ask themselves the following questions:

1.      Am I committed to staying drug, alcohol and tobacco free?

2.      Am I willing to release my transcript to the committee?

3.      Do I have the time to dedicate to the program?

4.      Am I willing to submit to random drug and alcohol testing?

5.      Will I agree to a background check?