Did you snap a cool shot at your kid's graduation?

Have a pic of the big one you reeled in at Camanche?

Do you have a news item you'd like to submit about your church fundraiser?

We now have an online feature that makes sharing all of this quick and simple: Newsy Neighbors. It's right on our homepage, identified with an eye-catching blue logo.

A bit of background: As the internet explodes, more news organizations are finding ways to highlight contributions directly from readers. We used to call this User Generated Content, or UGC. The new term is Contributed Content, or CC.

Letters to the editor are a classic form of CC, and we've traditionally been blessed with a strong flow of letters, far more than most papers our size. (You are free, by the way, to submit letters to the editor either through Newsy Neighbors or through letters@lodinews.com.)

With computers and digital cameras, readers can very easily contribute all kinds of material now. Pics of kids kicking goals, a pretty shot of a sunset over Lodi Lake, a news update on a new church or club officer or a business milestone.

Newsy Neighbors is our way of both streamlining and highlighting these contributions.

Sara Jane Pohlman, our schools reporter, is also serving as our Newsy Neighbors coordinator. She'll look over contributions, provide light editing as needed, and move them forward online or in print.

In coming weeks, we'll be highlighting our Newsy Neighbors contributions. On Thursday, for instance, we ran a Newsy Neighbors contribution page one: A photo and caption of Kamailie Rose DeAnda, 5, who won a surfing contest in Hawaii. Kamailie Rose is originally from Lodi and her grandparents still live here.

The photo and caption were absolutely charming, IMHO. In the next couple of weeks, we're inviting your graduation photos to be shared through Newsy Neighbors.

We'd also like to promote Newsy Neighbors through meetings with community groups. If you'd like us to come out and talk about how your group might connect through Newsy Neighbors, please contact Sara: sarap@lodinews.com.

This is a new venture for us, so your comments and suggestions are much appreciated.

In the meantime, if you have a grabby grad photo - or a shot of a big trout or a new club officer — why not share it through Newsy Neighbors?