Mentor PD Bets a Monthly Story Hour Can Build Trust Across 28 Square Miles

Starting Sept. 17, Mentor police officers will read to children at the public library's Main Branch, 8215 Mentor Ave., launching a program the department calls Police Pals Story Time. The free, drop-in sessions are designed to teach kids about safety through stories and activities — a new form of community policing outreach for a city that spans 27.8 square miles, the largest in Lake County by area, with 47,450 residents spread across it. Whether a single monthly session at one location can reach meaningfully across that geography is a question the department has not publicly answered.

Eight Sessions, One Location

The series runs eight sessions over nine months: Sept. 17, Oct. 15 and Nov. 19 this year, then Jan. 21, Feb. 18, March 18, April 15 and May 20, 2027. Every session starts at 11 a.m. at the Main Branch, is open to all ages and requires no registration.

Children who attend receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win a December 2026 pizza lunch with police officers and Dan from the Mentor Fire Department. Motorists reach the Main Branch parking lot from Lauren J Drive or an auxiliary lot off Sharonlee Drive; there is no access directly from Mentor Avenue.

Neither the library nor the police department has publicly detailed which safety topics officers plan to cover at each session.

A City Too Big for One Branch

Mentor Public Library operates four locations: the Main Branch, the Mentor-on-the-Lake Branch at 5642 Andrews Road, the Headlands Branch at 4669 Corduroy Road and The HUB at Mentor High School, 6477 Center St. Police Pals Story Time is scheduled only at the Main Branch.

The library system already runs youth programming at its other branches — the Headlands Branch, for instance, hosts Paws to Read for children ages 6 to 12 — so the infrastructure for multi-site programming exists. About 25.68% of Mentor households include children, though kids younger than 5 make up just 4.8% of the population in a city with a median age between 46 and 47.3. At a population density of 1,707 people per square mile, families in outlying neighborhoods face a real commute to the Main Branch for an 11 a.m. weekday program.

Where Story Time Fits in Mentor PD's Outreach

The story-time series is the department's first regularly scheduled program at a public library location open to walk-in participation by families with young children. It joins a roster of youth and community initiatives run by the department's Community Service Unit, which as of 2024 was staffed by Officer Dan Radigan and Tracey Woodward, the department's civilian Crime Prevention Specialist.

That unit already operates the Officer Phil program, a third-grade seatbelt poster contest at nine elementary schools, Safety Town, National Night Out, and Homecoming and Prom safety blitzes. Safety Town alone has run for more than 37 years through a partnership with the Junior Women's Club of Mentor, the fire and police departments, Mentor Public Library and Mentor Schools, teaching children ages 4 to 6 about fire safety, stranger awareness, poison prevention, pedestrian rules, traffic safety and bike safety.

The unit also provides Prevent-A-Gram mailings, security surveys, child safety-seat inspections, bicycle helmet safety programs and Neighborhood Block Watch information. The department's Victim Assistance Program has operated since 1997, serving more than 5,700 victims by 2018.

More recently, the department launched its first Citizens Police Academy in 2025 to give adults a behind-the-scenes look at police work. The 2026 academy is a free Monday-evening program running Sept. 28 through Nov. 16, covering criminal law, road patrol, specialty units and use-of-force decision-making.

At the Mentor Safety Forces Open House on Aug. 2, which included K-9 and drone demonstrations, auto-extrication displays and a children's poster contest, Mentor Police Chief Ken Gunsch said the event "started about five years ago as a recruiting opportunity and a way to display police and fire vehicles, equipment, and services."

No Plan to Measure What Matters

The department's 2024 and 2025 annual reports track operational metrics — calls for service, arrests by category, program activity — but neither contains survey data, community-relationship outcome measures nor public trust indicators for any of its community policing programs. Without those benchmarks, there is no documented way for the department or the public to gauge whether Police Pals Story Time, or any of its outreach efforts, is strengthening police-community relationships rather than simply logging attendance.

Eight sessions at one branch across nine months, in a city where nearly three-quarters of households have no children at home, leaves open a basic question: how will Mentor PD — or anyone — know whether this program moved the needle?

Police Pals Story Time begins at 11 a.m. Sept. 17 at Mentor Public Library's Main Branch, 8215 Mentor Ave. No registration is required. For information about youth and community-service programs, contact the Mentor Police Department at 440-974-5760. Library inquiries: 440-255-8811.