As Elliot Stockstad sees it, mentorship programs are one of the best ways to provide positive role models for students. Organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters do a masterful job, he said, at helping elementary and high school students. But middle school students, he said, often don’t have the same opportunity.

A new program, Mentor253, hopes to fill that gap – at least on Tacoma’s East Side.

Launched by the Northwest Leadership Foundation last fall with the help of a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, program organizers hope to match 150 students at Gault and McIlvaigh middle schools with mentors by the end next year.

So far, 30 students have been matched with mentors. Twenty others – 10 kids and 10 adults – are going through the required background check and should be paired by the start of the school year.

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Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 has been over for more than month now, but organizers still don’t have final attendance or financial figures.

And it might be a while, one of the event’s co-chairmen said.

“We haven’t had any conclusive discussions with the city – they’ve been very cooperative – but we got all mixed-up in ’05” with the numbers, Stan Selden said. “The county is doing an economic-impact study, and we’re not going to put out numbers we’re not sure of.”

Selden was referring in part to an early estimated attendance of 1 million during the inaugural 2005 event. That was widely believed to be a large miscalculation, and organizers since lowered that number by 200,000-300,000.

“And then there was the problem with the overbilling by the police department that got publicized big time,” Selden said. “When they found the error, it was publicized small-time.”

Planners estimated about 400,000 people attended this year’s event, which endured several days of less-than-perfect weather.

Executive director David Doxtater was unavailable for comment, and Selden is asking for patience with the count.

“We can’t even get final numbers out of Victoria yet, and they’re collaborating with them on a couple of costs,” he said. “It just takes some time. It’s not as simple as you might think.”

Is your child more likely to play Madden 2009 than actually get off the couch and throw a football?

With childhood obesity rates reaching nearly 20 percent (according to the CDC), the National Physicians Network is sponsoring Get Out and Play Day this Saturday at Wright Park.

The event, according to a release, is “a chance for children entering kindergarten through eighth grade to go to the park, participate in track meet-style events, and appreciate the joys of summer. The goal of the event is to show kids various alternatives to sedentary lifestyles.”

Click below to read the press release and find out more about registration:

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(As seen in Tacoma)

I've got a few different things cooking this week, including pieces like a three-legged goat with a prosthetic leg.