National Night Out

Tonight (unless you live in Texas who celebrates in October) is National Night Out - ‘America’s Night Out Against Crime'.

According to the website, this is the 29th Annual National Night Out, "a unique crime/drug prevention event sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch". Each participating community may hold a variety of events. Some events are neighborhood or block-wide, others are full community events.

Locally, our community brings out the public safety vehicles for exploration and holds a hot dog cook-out. The kids have a blast climbing aboard the big fire trucks and checking them out. We have been able to watch them take apart a demo car to see how they would rescue a trapped accident victim. We have had the chance to see the inside of a police car and an ambulance. We have had the chance to check out SWAT vehicles and more. Last year, we got to watch a medical helicopter land, explore it and then watch it take off again - I know that my daughter found that experience to be pretty neat. It was the first time we had seen a helicopter anywhere other than in the sky.

As a mom, I like the opportunity to capture their pictures next to the large tire of the big fire trucks. It is fun to look back over past years and see how they have grown (or is that tire shrinking?).

You can see a list of registered communities on the National Night Out website or search National Night Out and your community name.